Tips to help those with culture shock

As promised after posting about culture shock, I wanted to share some tips for helping your friends or family adjust to being back home. So I guess these are really tips for reverse culture shock, if we’re getting into details. If you are the one traveling across borders, feel free to send them to your family before you come back. These are just some personal experiences I’ve observed after my time abroad, and I know the hints below would’ve helped me a lot. They aren’t meant to blame others for the hard time I had adjusting, I just wanted to share with the hope that they would help others (and for me, next time). 

Don’t refer to their time abroad as a “trip.”

They were not simply on a trip. They were living in a different country for months on end, a small feat especially if the language and culture are completely new to them. They adopted a foreign city as home, so calling their months away a “trip” might make them angry.

Don’t label them as someone who “only talks about study abroad.”

I felt like I couldn’t share stories from my time abroad because people thought I was being stuck up about it or something. But for me, those five months encapsulated all my most recent memories, so I would’ve been talking about them had I been in the country or not. I have definitely been labeled as this person, sorry I just love talking about Italy!! A side note: don’t post on your Instagram stories a photo of them with the caption “only talks about study abroad the whole time” because it will make them feel like you don’t care and like they can’t share anything about it.  

Ask them questions about their time abroad.

Ask them things you want to know about the country they lived in. Be curious and let them speak about their adventures, when prompted and when something reminds them of it. Don’t scoff and tell them they act like they’re too good for anything now. They’ve just experienced so many more things than ever before and are probably bursting at the seams having to contain it for fear of being too caught up in it all. Now I’m not saying the conversation has to be all about them, if they don’t ask about what you were up to while they were away, then it’s probably not a good friendship (and vice versa).

Ask to see photos.

Don’t you want to hear about their adventures? Whenever I had friends that studied abroad I wanted to hear EVERY detail. I know not everyone is like this, but it can’t hurt to have them show you a few photos, it will show you care about their life.  

Give them time and space.

This is the biggest thing of all. It took me no time to adjust to life in Italy but SO much time to come back. I was like a walking zombie for at least six weeks. It might sound dramatic to say, but I forgot how to live in the US. I also resented being back which made the adjustment that much harder. So it helped to have time with no expectations where I could adjust back by doing what felt best at the time.

Do you have any additional tips? Add them in the comments below! xxMaggie