Hosting through P143: Our Calendar

One of our host daughters has some special needs, and having a calendar that shows what is going to be happening in our family really helps quell her anxiety.  She does best when she knows exactly what is happening and when it will be happening, and a calendar really helped her be successful both times she has come to stay with us.  However, I think a calendar like this can be useful for hosting even if there aren’t special needs involved.  All the kids in our family actually really enjoy having a calendar like this posted on the wall, even though normally I’m way to lazy to make one.

Having a calendar posted also helped our host daughters (and the other kids) to be aware of how much time had passed in the hosting period, and how much time was left to spend together, and that helps everyone mentally prepare for departure.

Our calendar is not fancy, which is maybe better in the long run because the kids love to write on it and cross off the days as they pass by.  I simply used an old school ruler, drew some straight lines, and labeled the days of the week in Latvian.  I looked at the calendar on my computer and identified some of the important things that would be happening during hosting that the girls would need to know about, and translated those things into Latvian with Google Translate.  During hosting we added other important things that we knew we would be doing as well.