The Christmas & Holiday season is now officially upon us — just in time to work off that second slice of pumpkin pie.

I think I’m finally figuring out how to do these seasonal celebrations — I’ve got the weekly countdown calendar planner out again. We’ve sent out party invitations and even bought cases of wine for celebrations from now to January 6th. I’m feeling psyched that I’ve got at least this part of our family life happily underway.

One benefit to accruing experiences over time is that you get better at things — but only if you remember what you learned before.

Last year I “learned” once again that  I can never seem to find my Advent Wreath for the 1st Sunday. So, last January I put in in a storage box with our Thanksgiving decorations and voila!! — Here it is, ready to go. I am pumped.

At AuPairMom we’re approaching our 4th Christmas / Chanukah / Kwanzaa / Ashura / Solstice season.

We’ve got three previous years of pretty useful discussion. I’ve summarized the big issues below. The links will take you to the conversations we’ve had in the past about these topics… you can read these convos for some great insights and suggestions.

Even though we have stores of wisdom in these posts and comments, sometimes we seem to want to have the conversations anew. (Why is that, I wonder?   — Is it because we just like sharing tips with each other? Is it that if we already figured it out we get to feel helpful, and there’s always someone new to the situation.)

So, for fresh conversations, here are two ideas.

• First, I’ll be posting some new polls so that we can see what folks are planning for this year. Next week we’ll poll on gift amounts and on-duty plans.
• Second, if you have a topic that you want us to address, shoot me an email at mom@aupairmom.com. I swear on my leftover turkey that I will read my au pair mom email (more) promptly and get those up for us to discuss.

If we summarize all the wisdom into a few key points, here they are:

1. Have a Master Plan. Share this with your au pair.

2. Imagine the cadence, rhythm, style of observance and spirit of your ideal family holiday. Share this with your au pair.

3. Explain your extended family. Explain who you’ll be with and what those people need from you & your au pair. Tell your au pair what to expect and now to behave.

4. Plan a gift giving strategy that includes your au pair. Give your au pair dollar limits and suggestions so that s/he doesn’t go crazy buying stuff.

5. Remember the little things — they might surprise your au pair and delight you.

6. Remember that holidays are opportunities for ‘cultural exchange’. They can be emotionally draining and emotionally rich– your approach will determine what you experience.

1. Master Plan

Have a master plan for your holiday celebrations and share this with your au pair!! Let her or him know the big picture as soon as possible, and put all the details that you can on your family calendar as soon as possible.

• Plan Ahead for the Holidays. How will your Au Pair celebrate with you?
• Poll: Will your AP be on-duty on Christmas?

2. Holiday Spirit & Religious Observance

Think about the qualities and spirit you’d like you family holiday time to express…. share these with your au pair so that s/he can support you in creating the holiday time that you hope for. Enroll her or him now in your vision– it’s the best way to make sure you’re all on the same page. And, be open to what your au pair might want to contribute from her or his perspective.

• On celebrating each other’s religious holidays

What about if s/he doesn’t celebrate Christmas and we do?
What about if s/he does celebrate Christmas and we don’t?

• Christmas Tip: Tell your Au Pair what your family believes about Santa

3. Talk about and prepare for holiday people and events outside your immediate host family.

• Mixing Grandparents and Au Pairs at the Holidays
• My Au Pair has Awful Table Manners
• Eating Out at Restaurants: Advice for Host Families and Au Pairs
• What to Wear? asks the Au Pair
• Temporary Eviction: Would you make your Au Pair stay somewhere else while you are on vacation?

4. Gift Giving   

• Holiday Gifts for Au Pairs
  

• Holiday Bonus, Tip, or End of Year Cash Gift? (Poll)
  
• How much should you tip your Au Pair at Christmas?
• Gift, Bonus or Tip: Call it what you want, but keep in mind….

• Christmas Tip: Tell your Au Pair what your family believes about Santa

5. Cultural Exchange

• How Can You Help Your Au Pair Feel at Home over the Holidays?
• Homesickness and your Au Pair: How you might help
  

6. Littler things to think about …

• Celebrate Your Au Pair’s First Snowfall!
• Christmas Tip: Make sure your Au Pair has a stocking

Let me know if there are new topics to discuss, and look for a new poll next week.

Host Parents: Be my päkapikud this holiday?

Images: Enchanted Forest Felt Christmas Trees from Balloon Highway, available on Etsy; Lazy Bear handmade felted Polar bear on Etsy, Polar Bear Pair also on Etsy, but I can’t find the link….

Special Halloween Edition

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays to share with Au Pairs. Unlike some holidays, Halloween doesn’t seem to trigger a whole lot of nostalgia and homesickness. For au pairs who ‘do’ Halloween in their home countries, it’s a chance for her to share traditions from her culture. And, if your au pair is new to Halloween, you get to introduce her to all the fun.

Over the years, we’ve done a lot of different things as a family to celebrate the holiday and the season, adjusting as the girls have gotten older. Halloween is one holiday where including our au pair in whatever we’re doing has increased the fun every time. Here are some Halloween activities you might consider:

1. Get your Au Pair a costume. At our house, I’ve always encouraged our au pairs to “get in the spirit” by putting together a costume. We’ve done the purchased costume from Target, the costume assembled from the kids’ dress up chest, and the completely original cardboard box “creature.”    

2. Bring your au pair to a Halloween Party. My daughters’ school has an annual Fall Festival, with a haunted hallway and square dancing, and we’ve always dragged our au pairs along. In part this gets me another set of eyes to watch the girls run around the auditorium, but also it gets our au pairs out into the community to see the Halloween fun that goes beyond just the candy.

3. Have your au pair greet the trick-or-treaters. One of our greatest Halloweens was when our 6 foot tall au pair dressed up as a witch and stood on our front porch, surrounded by jack ‘o lanterns and big fake spiders. She kept absolutely still– looking like a Halloween decoration– and at the moment the trick-or-treaters’ feet hit our steps, she let out a wild cackle.

Kids in our neighborhood still talk about it. One of the best scares ever.

4. Enlist your au pair to help with the candy distribution and collection. Having our au pair be on duty for Halloween evening means that we can take turns being at home to hand out candy and walking around with the kids to collect treats. Being the person who answers the door lets your au pair see the whole variety of costumes and kids, while going around the neighborhood (sometimes) lets her see what other people’s homes are like (another cultural exchange).

5. Find some Halloween crafts for her to do with your kids — like making scary food for the preK party.

6. Bring your au pair to a pumpkin patch.

7. Teach your au pair how to carve a pumpkin. Teach her how to salt & toast the seeds. Please also teach her to keep her face away from the pumpkin while she carves. Safety first.

8. Ask your au pair to play math games with the kids as they count, divide and trade their candy.

9. Invite your au pair to watch “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.” Explain to her why this show is/was such a tradition, and why it’s so sad. (This will also prepare her for traditions related to Charlie Brown’s Christmas, Rudolph, and The Grinch.)

What have you and your au pairs done to celebrate Halloween??

[Two years ago we enjoyed this post on gratitude, and au pairs. Since there are so many new and different readers of the blog now, that I thought I'd post it again.  Following up this post is a chance to reflect what you're thankful and grateful for in your host family- au pair relationship.  cv]

With Thanksgiving upon us, opening up the holiday season, all of us host moms & dads have a chance to be thankful about what our children and our au pairs bring into our lives.

Part of the reason I think that having an au pair can be so great is that it asks us to open up our families and to share our lives with others, in a unique way. We have to consider our values and priorities, translate these for someone from another culture, consider their personal and cultural values, manage the constant balance between employee and family, and collaborate together to support our children, our au pair, ourselves, and our community.

Thanksgiving gives us a (pretty obvious) opportunity to reflect on what having an au pair is bringing to our families, and how strengthening our relationships between our selves, our au pairs and our children can benefit all of us. Whether your relationship is more functional or more familial, whether you feel frustrated or delighted more often than not, there’s something good going on or your wouldn’t be in this relationship.

Take a moment to reflect on all of this, and to share your gratitude with your family and your au pair. (It’s okay to give yourself a pat on the back too, parents.)

Folks enjoyed the article by Christine Kane that I shared a few months ago, and here is another one about Thanksgiving. It’s always a treat to find something well-written and insightful, and since Christine encourages her readers to share her posts in toto, I’m happy to send it along to you.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Why Gratitude Makes You Happy and Wealthy
by Christine Kane

Gratitude is more than being thankful one day a year. Gratitude is a practice. For some, it’s a way of life.

Why do some people swear by the practice of gratitude? Why do these people have joy-filled and abundant lives?

In other words, why does gratitude make you happy and wealthy?

• Because gratitude is about presence.

It’s about waking up in this moment and being here – really being here – and noticing what’s around you. Most people are so busy thinking about the next thing, or about their horrid past, that they don’t wake up and look around at their present moment – the only moment there is.

• Because gratitude is about honoring YOUR precious life.

Do you ever compare your life with someone else’s? Do you ever wish your life were better and more like [insert famous person's name here]? Sometimes we can lose ourselves in wondering how we “measure up” to some standard set by our families or by the media. Comparison is the mind killer. The antidote is gratitude.

Gratitude requires that you validate your own life. (And you really don’t have any other life, do
you?) It forces you to say YES to the gift that is you. The choices you’ve made and the changes you’ve gone through – they have brought you here. Even if here is a place that needs a little adjustment, that’s okay. There are always gifts in any present moment.

• Because gratitude is about attracting.

It’s difficult to attract abundance and joy if you are constantly saying “no” to what IS. You say “no” each time you focus on the future or past, or when you criticize something that is in your present moment.

Attraction is about saying Yes. When you say Yes, you shift.

Gratitude says, “Yes, I love this!” And then more of this is attracted, because the this is what you’re focusing on.

• Because gratitude is about choice.

How you translate any situation is the situation. What you choose to see is the truth (for you).

This isn’t proposing that you live in denial or phoniness. It’s reminding you that your translation of any life situation is your choice. We’ve all heard stories of people who have ignored others’ translations of their talent, their projects, their art, their looks, their lives. These people chose their own translations and succeeded. You always have a choice when it comes to how you look at things. Choose to choose gratitude.

• Because gratitude is about wisdom.

I think people believe they’re being smart if they criticize, complain, and focus on the problems of the world around them.

Smart? Maybe.

Clever? Sure.

But not wise.

It is wise to look for and find the knowing place in your heart. It is wise to choose joy. It is wise to honor your riches. It is wise to focus on and grow the blessings of your life.

• Because gratitude is about recognition.

Use your power of focus to hone in on beauty and on what makes your heart sing. Recognize the spirit in your life. It’s all around you waiting to be noticed. In the words of Franz Kafka, “It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”

• Because gratitude is about receptivity.

Gratitude makes you receptive. It makes you a vessel, waiting to be filled.

I carry a tiny notebook with me everywhere I go. In it, I write down song ideas. I write down quotes I hear. I write down ideas for stage stories. As I do that, I become more receptive, and more ideas and songs come to me. It’s a tool that says to my subconscious, “Send more my way!” And the subconscious always responds.

Gratitude is the same way. It says, “I am receptive! Send more!” And more arrives.

• Because gratitude is about creativity.

Creativity is really all about attention. (So is genius.)

When I write a song, I build a relationship with that song. I spend time with it. I get to know it. I pay attention to it. Artists do the same thing with drawings. They spend time in rapt attention, and the drawing is born.

Gratitude is how we Live Creative. It is a creative act to notice and pay attention to the moments of your life. Some days it’s an enormous act of creativity to find things for which to be thankful.

Start today.

And have a Thanksgiving of presence, creativity, and gratitude! [Thanks Christine!]

Gratitide Cafe by CoreyThrace on Flickr
Cratitidue Tage by eekim on FLickr

Performer, songwriter, and creativity consultant Christine Kane publishes her ‘LiveCreative’ weekly ezine with more than 8,000 subscribers. If you want to be the artist of your life and create authentic and lasting success, you can sign up for a FRE*E subscription to LiveCreative at www.christinekane.com.

Last year one of our most active and committed community members “Taking a Computer Lunch“, casually mentioned something that she does for all of her au pairs shortly before they depart. She gives them the gift of “The Box“.

What is “The Box”?

We give our APs the biggest box their home countries permit, either for their birthdays or as a good-bye present, intending for them to fill it with the belongings that they want, but won’t shed tears if it doesn’t actually get to its destination.

Why is The Box such a great gift?

• Airlines have luggage weight regulations.
• Airlines charge horrific amounts for overweight extra luggage.
• Au Pairs like to buy souvenirs for their families at home.
• Au Pairs accumulate lots of their own souvenir treasures (like our au pair who made 6 full size scrapbooks while here… and then wondered how to get them home).
• Au Pairs buy a lot of stuff (shoes, books, clothing, shoes, clothing)
• Au Pairs often have full suitcases when they first arrive, so they have nowhere to put the new stuff.
• Host Parents can and will hand down, donate and recycle leftover stuff… but would rather not.

What will The Box cost you?

Says TACL:
It generally costs me $150 or so to send it airmail and insured for the amount of the postage fees, so it’s a generous gift. Most of my APs don’t realize the full value of the gift until a) they pack and b) they see how much the postage cost when they get home.

Extra APM Tip? Make The Box “Special”

Depending on whether or not you help your au pair pack the box, and if you take it to the UPS/PostOffice place yourself, you might tuck a little extra ‘something’ inside The Box... maybe some photos, some candy (something light weight) as one more token of your affection.

You can also decorate The Box-- or have your kids do it– so that it is especially cute when it shows up back home.

Now, of course, we love the concept of “The Box” — but it’s the 2nd best Goodbye Gift.

What is the 1st Best Goodbye gift?

Memories of a wonderful year.

Many thanks to “Taking a Computer Lunch” for this great idea and all the many other tips she’s shared with us on AuPairMom!!!

See also:
Saying Goodbye to an Au Pair you Parents really love
Getting her stuff back home: Is there a cheap way to ship things?
Goodbye Gifts

Note:   Despite what these illustrations suggest, I do not recommend that you pack your cat into The Box.
Images: Cat in the box?from mcwetboy Boxed cat from Mothlike

The 1st annual International Au Pair Appreciation Week was such a success that we’re doing it again this year, from May 17 to May 21st.

Au Pair Appreciation Week is our chance as host moms and dads to celebrate what we enjoy the most about having au pairs in our family lives.

Although moms and dads who ask for advice here on AuPairMom are occasionally accused of being grumpy, demanding, and/or hard to live with, we all know that we wouldn’t even BE host moms and dads if we didn’t believe that having an au pair could be a great experience. After talking with and hearing from so many host families, I firmly believe that behind every bad au pair story there are dozens of happy au pair stories just waiting to be told.

Au Pair Appreciation Week is your chance to share those stories– to tell your own and to hear those of other host families.

3 Options for Sharing “Appreciations”

We have some great participants on this site who love to write, and from whom we can expect some lovely stories. But also, there are lots of host parents who might prefer a shorter, more concise mode of sharing. And, there are host parents probably prefer pictures to words. For APAW we’ll have three different options for sharing what you appreciate about your au pair.

1. Tell us a story about something that your au pair did for you, your kids, your family, or anyone else. Enjoy the opportunity to tell us as much as you want, however you want to, anywhere between 50 and 500 words. Depending on how many stories we receive, I’ll either set them up as one big post, or unfold a series of happy stories over the course of APAW.

2. Share just one characteristic, action or vignette, but this time in the short form. You can have more that the 140 characters of twitter, but you can make it as short as a paragraph.

3. Send in a photo, with a brief caption.

Rules of APAW:

1. Anyone can participate– Host Parents, host kids, grandparents, neighbors and au pairs too.

2. You may submit as many appreciations as you like– but please make each appreciation about only one au pair at a time. Let each au pair have her or his own appreciation (unless it’s some kind of special case).

3. Your appreciation can be for your current au pair, a former au pair, or another au pair you know.

4. If you use your au pair’s name or likeness, you must have her or his explicit permission to share it. Probably best to use a pseudonym, especially if you want to surprise her or him with a little public praise.

5. Your real name and email address must be part of the submission. However, I will only publish your name if you ASK ME to. Otherwise, you will be anonymous. You’ve gotta opt in to become an AuPairMom celebrity host parent, okay?

6. By virtue of sending it to me in an email, you’re allowing me (CV Harquail) to publish your story, paragraph and/or photo here on AuPairMom.

7. Remember that computer glitches and stuff might get in the way of this being super-efficient. Let’s see how it goes.

How to submit your appreciations:

– Submit your appreciation via email to mom at AuPairMom dot com

– Please put APAW in the subject so that I can sort submissions easily from my other email.

– Put your story in the BODY of the email text, not as an attachment.

– Put the caption of your photo in the body of the email text, and make your photo an attachment.

– Submissions may be sent anytime between now (May 3rd) and May 20th. Send some soon so that I can queue them up and be ready to let loose the love on May 19th.

Questions? Anything I forgot? Anyone want to make us a pretty APAW button or banner? Let me know.

We are all looking forward to hearing your great stories of Au Pair Appreciation!

Many parents find that 45 hours a week is not enough childcare.

Either you have an emergency late night at work, a kid home sick, a snow day, or a bookclub meeting. Some parents have work + commute combos that mean they’re away from home 10 hours a day, m-f, even if they stagger their departures and returns.

In a perfect world, we’d have low cost back-up childcare — a friend or parent, a high school babysitter, or even a second au pair — who could pick up the childcare hours that go above and beyond your au pair’s 45 hour limit.

But we don’t live in a perfect world, and so host parents (and au pairs) break or bend the 45 hour/week rule.

Let’s agree that we know that this rule exists, and the reasons why it exists. Given that some parents feel they need to break this rule, and given that many au pairs would be happy to earn some extra pocket money — let’s tawk:

Is there a fair way to ask for & pay for extra on-duty hours?

The host parent who emailed to ask that we discuss this has two key questions.

One question is easier– what to pay per hour?

The second question is a bit dicier — how to make it fair?

Here’s the email from the parent who suggested this post:

Dear APM readers-    My question is about extra hours.

I know this subject may be a little taboo, but I have spoken with my current Au Pair and many of her friends, and I’ve learned that many families have made arrangements for their Au Pairs who work over the 45 hour limit.

My spouse and I both commute to NYC and even working 9-5, the commuting makes a typical week 52-55 hours long. During our interviews with prospective au pairs, we discussed our longer work week and also discussed how we would compensate her monetarily for this. We also discussed what other ‘perks’ we would offer an Au Pair – things such as:

• Full car use on weekends
• Her own private bathroom and tv room (for the most part)
• Cell phone and texting plan
• A computer for her use only
• Almost never having to work weekends (unless she was off a bit during the week – and we always try to clear this with her first)
• Only one really sweet baby to watch — our now 10 month old daughter, who lucky for all of us is an angel, never crying, fussing, etc. Compared to the many au pairs we know who are in charge of two or three hyperactive 6-10 year olds, our one baby seems to be easier work

What we tried to make clear was that we were offering a somewhat cushy set-up. In addition, we felt with my wife and I being young (31) and in our eyes, relatively cool, we offered an all around good deal for a prospective Au pair, short of the extra hours.

Our Au Pair agreed to this arrangement before matching, and it’s been working well for us. That said, she is also a fabulous au pair in every way.

Here are my main questions:

What do you think is fair to pay your au pair for these extra hours?

What are other families who require north of 45 hours paying their au pairs?

If you simply offer the Au Pair her hourly rate for the extra hours (weekly pocket money divided by 45 hrs), it comes out to $4.33. I feel like that is taking advantage a bit, but I don’t have a different way to assess what other amount might be ‘better’.

I’m looking looking to hear other host parents’ (and au pairs’) thoughts.

What makes this Host Dad’s concern ‘unique’ is that this arrangement is not temporary or occasional — it’s an ongoing thing. So, I expect that host parents will have some specific & different concerns about this arrangement as opposed to ad hoc extra hours here and there.

Some concerns I had–

What if the au pair changes her mind about the arrangement?
What if your work schedules change and she stops earning ‘extra’ money?
What if your au pair ends up chronically tired, or grumpy?

Okay host parents and au pairs, off we go.

Just ONE request– if you want to comment anonymously, choose & use a pseudonym. We need to keep track of all the participants as we unfold our conversation.

spazimal rainbow from jek in the box
spazimal pink spotted splat from jek in the box

See also:

Do you pay your Au Pair for her orientation days?
Should you share your au pair?

When a host family takes their au pair with them to work during part of the vacation, what should they provide for her during her off-duty time? Especially, what should you provide on a ski vacation, where costs are relatively high and your au pair can’t afford to pay for her own skiing?

A European Host Mom Ann asks:

Our au pair from America is a nice girl. She has been here since start of January. In two weeks we will be going on a wintersports holiday. She will travel with us to the hotel (so travel expense is covered) as is the hotel including dinners and breakfast. She will stay in a room that she shares with the boys. We will make sure she will have privacy there.

My question is: who should pay for what? Skipass, ski lessons and a rental of skis & helmet will be necessary (also she needs glasses, a warm jacket and snowpants) if she wants to go skiing. She is supposed to work this week, but if the kids are in ski-lessons, she is off-duty, so she could use this time for skiing.

I would appreciate your advice very much–

thanks, Ann

Let me start of with some general principles for taking your au pair on vacation:

• Anytime you take your au pair with you to work, when you are on vacation, you should provide her with comfortable lodging, and all the same kinds of food, etc. as you would your kids. (However, don’t let her run her own bar tab on your room account!).
• Make sure she knows that, while it’s vacation for you, it is largely work time for her.
• Set aside some off duty time for her so that she can explore wherever you are and spend a little time vacationing too. Also, make sure you’re giving her a decent chunk of time off (like, an afternoon to sight-see, not time after dinner when it’s dark and everything is closed).
• Make sure she has things to keep herself busy not bored.
• Make sure that she has a way to stay in touch with family and friends (e.g., internet access).

You are already planning to do much of this, and thinking about the other details now is definitely good.

The hard part is always whether you can afford to have your au pair vacation in the same style as you parents or the kids are vacationing.  After all, it’s your vacation and not hers.

In an ideal world, you’d have enough money (we all would) to be able to pay for your au pair to ski during all of her off duty time… However, given that it costs around $100 per day to have your au pair ski, this may be out of the question for you.

You’ll want to talk with your au pair about how much it actually costs to pay for each skiing adult. Here in the US it’s horribly expensive– maybe it is less so where you are going? But you want to make she that she knows whether or not it’s easy for you to afford. Not that you want to make her feel beholden if you can afford to treat her, but you also don’t want her to misperceive the extent of your generosity. To imagine that two days of skiing equals a week of pocket money sure puts that into perspective.

You might consider how much you can afford to spend to entertain your au pair… and then offering her the opportunity to chose how to use this budget. She might prefer two days of skiing, or maybe she’d prefer extra time off to do something less costly (skating, movie marathons, hiking).

Make a special effort to identify some interesting and less expensive activities that she can enjoy, and make sure she packs what she needs for those activities. For example, your hotel may have a pool, whirlpool and fitness room. Or, you might bring a laptop and a video camera and encourage her to make a few movies. You might identify historic sites near to your hotel and get her tourist information. I know this may seem dorky and unglamorous compared to skiing, but everyone can remember that this trip is part of her chance to see other areas of the world, and she could take advantage of that regardless of the skiing.

Keep in mind that, when you take an au pair with you on a ‘fancy’ vacation, she may thing that you have a lot of disposable income and that if you aren’t paying for her, too, you’re simply being cheap. It is hard for au pairs, kids, relatives, anyone but the adults in charge, to know how a vacation fits into the family’s overall budget.

My personal opinion is that you should try to spring for two days of skiing… maybe her two off duty days, or a few half days while the kids are busy. It would be hard not to come off as mean to take her to a ski resort and not help to make it possible for her to ski a bit too.

Talking about all of these issues is difficult, and with an immature au pair it can be impossible. But, you are starting with a good foundation.

Remember, and mention this to your au pair, that being able to talk about money, about privileges, about role differences, and so on is not easy, but it is the only way we can make sure that we are correctly understood — in both directions.  This is part of the life lessons for host parents and au pairs.

What else should Ann think about? What do you advise??

Also see:

Don’t take your Au Pair on vacation during her first 3 months!

Family Skts from jgscils598f08 Pretty young woman in white and…from nigel67

Truly one of the joys of being a host parent is watching your au pair blossom as a citizen of the world and as as a person. I look back in hindsight now and wish that for each of our au pairs, I had written them a note at the start of their year to give them at the end, just so I could document for them and for myself how much they had grown.

I was thinking about this last week when we here at AuPairMom got an email from a young (American) woman who wanted some advice about whether an au pair year would be a good thing…

I just ran across your blog and I love it! Its really great to see things from the mother’s perspective. Currently Im considering being an Au Pair, basically everything is set up for me to travel to Istanbul, now I just have to decide if it is the right decision for me.

I love children, I am a part time nanny for my 3 year old nephew, so I am confident I would be a great Au Pair. I am worried though, because I do not know any Turkish, and would not be taking language classes there. I am going to study up on the language before hand.

Basically, I was wondering if you had an opinion on whether taking a year off of college to be an Au Pair is really worth it. The family I would be living with sounds wonderful and Istanbul would be an amazing place to live for a year. With your experience, did your Au Pairs like their time abroad, did they think it was a good decision for them?

Any advice would be wonderful.

Host parents, how have you seen your au pairs blossom over their year with your family? How did they grow?

© Photo used with permission of the artist: “Watch out world, my daughters are growing up” from SarahWV on Flickr

By popular demand, here’s a challenge to all you host parents:

Your challenge:

Offer ONE, just one, thing you wish you knew when you became a host parent.

If someone else has already offered your #1 bit of advice, go on to share your #2 bit of advice.

Let’s rack ‘em up, parents.

(Au pairs, you’ll get a turn next to offer advice to first-time host parents.)

Don’t Stop Believing by fernandosanchez on Flickr

If you are a first-time host family, and if you celebrate Christmas, you might find yourself caught off guard when you begin to incorporate your Au Pair into your family traditions.

Some families will want their au pair to help select and decorate the tree, others won’t. Some families will invite the au pair to their church’s celebrations, others will not.

But whatever you do, make sure that your au pair has a stocking to hang!

In my family, both children and adults hang stockings for Santa. (Adults get small little stocking gifts (chapstick, Hello Kitty tissue packs, sparkly hair clips from H&M, chocolate coins, and always a tangerine).

You’ll want to include your au pair in this tradition. .. ( Check out this earlier post on Holidays, too.)