From the category archives:

Cultural Exchange Challenges

On celebrating each other’s religious holidays

by cv harquail November 9, 2009

Only 4.5 weeks till Hanukkah, 8 weeks until Christmas, 9 until New Years… Time to think about weaving your Au Pair into your family’s celebrations.
You should think ahead, and talk with your au pair, because holidays can be important times to feel in or out of a family, acknowledged or overlooked, celebrated or taken for [...]

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Choosing an Au Pair: Language as a Selection Criterion (Poll)

by cv harquail November 2, 2009

What do you think of the idea of choosing an au pair based on her native language?
Note: Choosing on language is not the same as choosing an au pair based on culture. Just think of the range of cultures where French is spoken!  Cameroon, Haiti, Montreal and Tuscany are  very different  cultures.
Is there any reason [...]

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Her Language or Yours? Balancing different goals

by cv harquail November 1, 2009

One of the oft-cited opportunities of au pair childcare is the idea that your children can learn another language from your au pair.
Sometimes people choose au pairs to help them reinforce a second language that is already spoken in the household (perhaps, by one of the parents or by a child adopted from another country). [...]

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Cultural Exchange and Having an Au Pair

by cv harquail October 20, 2009

Today I was interviewed by a journalist who is writing an article for a parenting magazine about the au pair hosting experience. One area she was very interested in was the idea of Au Pairs as a cultural exchange experience for the host kids. She wanted to know:
How much of the host family experience is [...]

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Matching with an Au Pair: When Racism interferes

by cv harquail October 2, 2009

Take a deep breath everyone– time to talk about something many people find uncomfortable: Racism.  But talk about it we must, because racism gets in the way of our relationships with each other.
3 Sources of “Racism Interference”
Racism interference can come from three directions, any of which can influence your match with an Au Pair.

The au [...]

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Part of the Family: What does that mean to you?

by cv harquail July 1, 2009

What does it really mean for your au pair to be "part of the family"?
What do you do in your relationship with her that is different, if you treat her as "part of the family" versus if you don’t?
Have you had the opportunity to compare the experience of a live-in caregiver who was ‘part [...]

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Not Listening? Not Understanding? Not working out… help!

by cv harquail June 27, 2009

This mom has an interesting twist on a common challenge: the language barrier. In this case, her AP speaks clearly…she just doesn’t seem to understand…or listen.. or care. it’s not clear. Can you offer her any advice?
Our new au pair, from Brazil, arrived two weeks ago after our Swedish au pair decided our [...]

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Hello? Your Au Pair needs good “phone manners”

by cv harquail June 25, 2009

I just got off the phone with the au pair of one of my friends, and I had two serious problems during the call. Neither problem was caused by the au pair’s still-limited English. Both of these problems were cause by bad phone manners. Said another way, the problems would not even have occurred if [...]

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What skills has your Au Pair learned… from You?

by cv harquail June 20, 2009

I was downstairs early this morning, in quiet reverie folding laundry. When I dragged the fitted sheets out of the dryer and started the elaborate and effective semaphore choreography that gets them folded into tidy piles, I was reminded of all of the crazy little things that I have taught my au pairs over [...]

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Traveling with Kids: Book to investigate

by cv harquail June 20, 2009

Strolling across the interweb this morning, I came across this review of a book about traveling with kids … and it looks like the kind of information Au Pair host parents might be interested in.

Many of us choose to have Au Pairs over US college student live-ins, or other caregivers, because we’d like to expose [...]

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