Get the easy email newsletter! Just add your address to the yellow box, below right.
Powered by MaxBlogPress  

Caring for children

How to Help Your Au Pair Connect With Your Kids

by cv harquail July 9, 2011

How do you want your au pair to interact with your children? We spend a lot of time in our handbooks and meeting going over the house rules and general family principles, but often we leave implicit our our expectations for day-to-day kid – au pair interaction. Sure, we want each au pair-kid combo to [...]

12 comments Read the full article →

How Much Can an Au Pair Improve Sibling Dynamics?

by cv harquail June 28, 2011

Each host family is its own self-reinforcing social system. Families have their own logic, their own climate, their own emotional rules, values, priorities, and patterns of behavior. Although the new person in the family/home means that everyone adjusts, au pairs adjust more to the family than the family adjusts to the au pair. Family systems [...]

7 comments Read the full article →

Unbearable Fighting Between Siblings: Fair cause for rematch? (Bettina)

by cv harquail June 28, 2011

Here’s Bettina’s story about her host kids… click back to the original post to discuss whether, if, and how an au pair can make a positive difference in host family dynamics. I’m an au pair in the US for 2 weeks now, and I really like it here. When I arrived, I immediately felt comfortable [...]

42 comments Read the full article →

What if you Au Pair thinks your child might need professional help?

by cv harquail June 17, 2011

Our au pairs get an up-close and personal view of our families. Sometimes they see things we don’t see, maybe even things we don’t want to see for ourselves. Because au pairs interact with our children when we parents are often not around, and they spend longs days with our kids, they may notice things [...]

34 comments Read the full article →

When your Au Pair meets the Kids’ Needs but not the Parent’s Expectations: Ideas wanted

by cv harquail June 14, 2011

Kids and parents want different things. Kids want to stay up, parents want to go to sleep. Kids want to make a mess, parents want that mess cleaned up (eventually). Kids get engaged in fun and learning, while parents must take care of safety, nutrition, and other not-quite-as-fun stuff. We have different sets of priorities. [...]

21 comments Read the full article →

Does your Au Pair attend kids’ school celebrations?

by cv harquail June 8, 2011

I got this question, from OBMom, just after I sent my DH yet another email with the details of daughter #2′s school dance performance and implored him (okay, nagged him) once again to make sure he gets there on time . We are overwhelmed by end-of-school events. June is the née September, I’ll say, and [...]

45 comments Read the full article →

Have a 9-11 Plan for your family and your au pair

by cv harquail March 14, 2011

(First published on 9.11.09.  Republished with original comments.) Thinking about ‘lessons’ from 9-11 can often be heartbreaking, especially in my community where so many of us lost family, friends and co-workers in the WTC attacks. It’s almost disrespectful to bring up the idea of a “9-11″ plan, but maybe thinking ahead about how we might [...]

13 comments Read the full article →

Arguments between my child and my Au Pair are driving me nuts!

by cv harquail March 5, 2011

Dear Au Pair Mom readers– Our au pair has been with us for 1 1/2 months. She’s 19, Italian, and speaks excellent English. She cares for our daughter while I work part-time the house, part-time out. The problem is that our daughter, who is about to turn 4, is having a hard time with this [...]

30 comments Read the full article →

Improving the Relationship between your Au Pair and Your Kids

by cv harquail February 17, 2011

A request from VtMom — Dear Au Pair Mom readers –I have a minor issue that’s been bothering me and wanted to solicit the collective wisdom of the group. Compared to other posts on this blog, I have nothing to complain about. Instead, my issue surrounds something that’s “nice to have.” Background: We have three [...]

41 comments Read the full article →

My Child Doesn’t Want an Au Pair (and we need to have one). Ideas?

by cv harquail November 2, 2010

I am a single HM, with a wonderful, but very strong willed 5yr old girl. We had our first AP in June for 10 weeks this year to see how it worked for us and to cover the 6 wk school holidays. I had previously had a month off work sick, but normally work full [...]

32 comments Read the full article →

← Previous Entries