September 2009

Don’t break your own childcare rules

by cv harquail September 30, 2009
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Here’s a way to mess up your relationship with your au pair, your au pair’s relationship with your child(ren), and your child(ren)’s relationship with you, all at once: Break your own childcare rules. Have a rule that no candy can be eaten before dinner? How about not letting the kids watch tv before homework, or […]

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Share the Cream: Give your AP meaningful work to do

by cv harquail September 28, 2009
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One piece of advice my friend Adelaide gave me when we got our first au pair was “Share the Cream.” “Sharing the Cream” means sharing both the good parts (the cream) as well as the tough parts of a job or an experience. I don’t know where Adelaide came up with this saying, but it’s […]

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Choosing an Au Pair: How to Avoid a Princess

by cv harquail September 26, 2009
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If only it were as easy as sticking a green vegetable underneath her mattress and waiting to see if she gets a good night’s sleep… We all want to avoid “the princess” – the au pair candidate who thinks the job is all about visiting the States, living in an American home, and having an […]

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When your personal, private challenges affect your Au Pair relationship

by cv harquail September 23, 2009
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Often on this blog we talk about what’s happening between you and your au pair as the source of difficulties– but sometimes the difficulty is all of our own making. Things happen to us host parents — grandparents die, host parents divorce, someone loses a job, a parent gets hospitalized, a child is challenged, and […]

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Male Au Pairs: When would you hire one? (Poll)

by cv harquail September 22, 2009
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Have you ever thought about hiring a male au pair? I haven’t considered it, since I have two girls and I’m looking for positive young women as role models…. but one of my girlfriends has a male au pair for their two sons, and she’s found that a male au pair has been just as […]

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R.T.F.M. Making sure your Au Pair Reads the Family Manual

by cv harquail September 17, 2009
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Long before there was OMG, ROTFLMAO and WTF, there was RTFM. R ead T he F (your favorite F word here. We use “family”) M anual We put a lot of work into those family manuals and handbooks, and we expect them to be useful to our Au Pairs. However, before the Au Pairs find […]

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3 Questions to Ask Yourself as Rematch Approaches

by cv harquail September 16, 2009
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We received an email from a host mom who unintentionally became a doormat, and who wonders whether she should consider rematching. Since I feel confident at how you all will respond once your read her email (a link to which appears below), I thought instead we might consider how, when facing a rematch, we can […]

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How did I become a doormat?

by cv harquail September 16, 2009
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Hello. I have been reading Au Pair mom website since we got our first Au Pair from Brazil in Feb 2009. She is 19 years old. We have 22 month old twins. My husband works out of the home for the most part and I work some from home and some away from home. My […]

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How do we know when it’s time to give up?

by cv harquail September 9, 2009
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Our first 2 Au Pairs were fantastic … but we are having a hard time bonding with #3. She initially had difficulty keeping our 2 boys (age 5), and focused on activities rather than wrestling but seems to be improving in that area (very slowly)… However, getting her to talk to us or the kids […]

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Who pays for what?

by cv harquail September 7, 2009
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Sometimes the concept of treating an au pair like a ‘member of the family’ doesn’t give you enough guidance. This seems especially true when it comes to figuring out ‘who pays for what, when’. We got a request (using the Skribit feature) for a post that would heolp to establish some guidelines for this. I’ve […]

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