Comments on: Our Au Pair is not the cheerful girl we expected. Now what?

By: Chev

Chev — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 02:50:05 +0000

I think you should definitely invest in your new HF. They sound like they think of you as more than just an employee, otherwise they wouldn’t have bothered with the maps and timetables.
Having a bad experience can be rough, my first host family wasn’t the best fit for me, nor me for them. But having lived and worked through that i appreciate even more the wonderful family i have now.

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By: aupair

aupair — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 01:20:00 +0000

Thank you, that’s very kind. You made me happy to see that at least somebody could appreciate that.
I think AP- Host family should have an Win Win type relation. If they treat me nice and respect me, I’m happy, if I do my tasks and respect them, they should be happy.
Like you said, you were right. They send me a text to say the children are driving them mad, the dog is sad and they all miss me. It’s funny how I’m not happy about this, it makes me feel more sad.
Is bad when people don’t realise what they had just until they it’s gone for good, isn’t it? I am wondering, should people (hostmoms, au pairs, etc) have had bad experiences first, in order to be able to appreciate the good ones? Otherwise, we think we deserve everything that happens to us?
N0w I’m at a new family. I’m their first AP. They were so nice they even took maps and leaflets with the city,with cafes and with trains timetable and put them near my bed. But I don’t even know how to be with the host family anymore. Should I just do my tasks? Or should I try to get close, to invest feelings in them, in their children, in their pet?
Actually, my biggest concern is : are the host parents investing something in their AP? or is, after all, just a person who works for them?

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By: Euromom

Euromom — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:42:02 +0000

Hey aupair – you sound absolutely wonderful and I know that it will not mean so much to you now but that family will really really appreciate you – now that you are gone (

You are the type of au pair that most families can only dream of having so please do not feel discouraged – but I have one piece of dvise for you – only invest this amount of effort again if you see a return.

But thank you for letting us know that there are girls like you out there.

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By: aupair

aupair — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:27:26 +0000

I’ve been au pair in England for 5 months already and now I took another family. As an au pair, I tried my best to fit into the previous family. Played with the children, took them to the park, with the bus in town, or just stayed indoors and played games. Sometimes I left them play by themselves while I was watching the telly or reading a magazine and that’s because honestly, you cannot play 8 hours without stopping. And as we all know, you have to be very active durring the day with children and you just feel the need to take some moments and sit down. And if the children are playing nice by themselves, then where is the problem?I don’t agree leaving the children in front of the telly for the hole day or being obsessive with watching films.
Besides this, I took care of the house, painting the bathroom, washing their car, washing the cooker daily and tidying up all the things, from zero. I did more than my job assumed. I worked very hard, I must say, and the house was shinny, the children were clean and with their dinner ready, and the dog was walked and combed daily.
I bought english books and a cambrige notebook with exercises from the library to improve my language.
I even made conversations with them, every night at dinner, laughing, making jokes, being interested in their life and day. I was all the time available, offering myself to babysitt in weekends (from 6 a’clock in the morning ) just to let the parents sleep more in the morning.
And guess what? they seemed to be glad with me, but they weren’t. I always felt they don’t like some part of my personality. They were very grateful at the end. but I somehow felt they wished to replace me as soon as they had the chance. They never asked me to stay more, even if I could do it. Even if they had problems in finding another girl after my leaving.
I really tried to be part of their familly but I also left them enough time to be alone and have privacy with the children. At dinner times I always gave them a report about how the day went and how are the children or if there were any problems with them.
At the end, I felt very dissapointed. I worked my ass out and I invested in them, hoping that they won’t be that cold with me. Hoping that they would ask more about my home country, about my family, about my preferences.
Being au par is a hell of a job : you have to be active and creative during the day with the children and find your way around the house, and be polite and cheerful at night time with the parents.

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By: MommyMia

MommyMia — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:09:14 +0000

I agree – it’s hard sometimes to strike a balance between engaging in play with preschoolers and letting them sometimes just be on their own. It’s a tough concept for many au pairs (and even us parents) to grasp, and though I try not to butt in when I see that my little one was happily playing alone and then got cranky when AP tried to involved herself in the game or activity, you do need to point out that sometimes the AP just needs to be nearby keeping an eye & ear out, but can read or tidy up or do something else. Learn to enjoy listening to the make-believe scenarios and see how their imaginations work! Absolutely necessary for development and they do need to work things out by themselves in order to grow into reasonable human beings.

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By: Calif Mom

Calif Mom — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 03:09:12 +0000

we had one like this whom I’m convinced had Depression. (We were her third family. I, ever the cockeyed optimist, have learned much.)

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By: Calif Mom

Calif Mom — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 03:07:34 +0000

I can only imagine how hard it is to find someone who meets your needs! Rematch isn’t ever easy, though, the emotions run very high, and you don’t want to end up out of the frying pan into the fire.

But I agree with your larger point–there is no perfect!–and you really do need your au pair to have a good relationship with your daughter. Glad you have a network to help you catch your breath! (I just drafted our new host family letter, since we need to start thinking about recruiting; apparently I swung too far on the ‘trying to scare off any and all princesses’ continuum. He insists I do nothing further with it until he can edit. Where would we be without our advisors to remind us when to take deep breaths?!)

I have a sticky note at work that reads “I practice radical acceptance”. A very helpful concept at times.

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By: Sara Duke

Sara Duke — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 02:32:14 +0000

I think that those of you who have typical children may be able to go into rematch quite easily. For those with special needs children who need to be driven, the venn diagram of available au pairs in country at any given time is next to zero. When HD and I are forced to weigh the consequences of waiting for an out-of-country au pair to arrive, we usually let our pique of anger pass (albeit we call yet another monthly meeting). The last time I wanted to go into rematch there were 2 au pairs who would fit our minimum requirements in rematch status (not to say that either of them necessarily would have been up to the task). HD and LCC managed to help me take a deep breath.

So I can live without a perfect adult-au pair relationship as long as there is a good au pair-special needs child relationship — for one year.

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By: Calif Mom

Calif Mom — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 02:17:52 +0000

6 weeks in, it’s probably not going to suddenly be “ok”.

That said, I think it’s totally fine for your 4 yo to be playing legos by himself! Not all day long, but neither does he need someone coaching him at that, either, so I don’t think any damage is being done.

I’ve discovered that our weekends are harder than they used to be because when Mom and Dad are on duty, we don’t stop everything and engage in imaginative play with the kids. Sorry, but there are errands and chores, kids! They much prefer to hang with our au pair…this is “a good problem”, of course, but too much of a good thing can create its own unusual situations. Took us awhile to figure out why kids were being so needy on weekends. They had to remember how to play by themselves, fix their own problems a bit.

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By: Former French Au Pair

Former French Au Pair — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 01:41:20 +0000

I think the advice you have been given should help to give your au pair one more chance to prove herself to you.
Homesickness can be a short-term syndrome of living abroad as an au pair, and it brings emotions which causes are difficult to precisely identify… Keep talking to her and try different things to make her feel home and cheer her up (find her friends, meals from home, as suggested).
But her attitude may also be a combination of the above and her personality. She may be more shy and reserved than expected, and is unable to adapt to the personalities/ style of your family. A personality mismatch can happen and there is really no way to change a person, so a rematch (although difficult in your situation) may be called for.
I had for example an American family with an au pair whose native language was English, but yet she never spoke unless asked a question, only brief answers, never engaged the children and had a hard time gaining their respect. She went on with a family that wanted a more “homy” and less extraverted au pair and did fine. My family rematched with a super extraverted, very active, funny, laughing, silly but mature & independant au pair. They ended up extending for a 2nd year together.
So I guess finding out the exact reason for her behaviour would be the #1 task, and then that can help you determine if it is something that can be solved (like short-term homesickness) or not (like a personality trait or long-term homesickness).

Also, even though you are not with an agency, there might be a nanny/ au pair group in your area she could plug into?

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