extensions

How Best To Celebrate Our Au Pair’s Extension? (Poll)

by cv harquail January 14, 2016
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Dear AuPairMom — We’d love the community’s advice about how to recognize and celebrate our Au Pair’s agreement to extend with us.   I’d like to know what is expected, common, meaningful, etc. Our family with save about $1500 (not to mention loads of time and hassle) because she’s extending for another year. I’d like […]

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Why Extend an Au Pair Who Bothers You?

by cv harquail August 18, 2015
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What We Think vs. What We Know This FrustratedHM thinks she should extend with her less than so-so Au Pair. But she knows that she doesn’t want to. Why is it that so many times we ask each other for permission to do what we know is the right action? As if someone’s going to […]

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Au Pair Declines to Extend, Now Her Host Parents Are Mean

by cv harquail March 6, 2015
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When you have an Au Pair you like, the idea of extending for another 6, 9, or 12 months seems so tempting! We can imagine ourselves just gliding into that extra time, relieved of the burden of finding, training, and adapting to a new au pair. So when we ask our Au Pairs to extend— […]

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Is It Too Late To Extend? Any J-1 Workarounds?

by cv harquail January 18, 2015
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Imagine it — you have an au pair you love. She didn’t want to extend. Now she’s changed her mind, but the agency says it’s too late. Is it really too late? Dear Au Pair Mom– We just ended the year with the world’s best au pair.  She is a part of our family. The […]

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Host Mom Dumped at Funeral by Extension Au Pair-turned-Bridezilla

by cv harquail June 4, 2014
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Readers, I couldn’t think of another headline that would capture the gawd-awful truth of this host mom’s story. Let’s call her “UnluckyHostMom”.  Dear AuPairMom– I know that you typically post questions, and that you occasionally run guest posts written by readers.  I recently had such a terrible au pair experience, that I thought it would be […]

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Does Your Extension Au Pair Deserve a Raise?

by cv harquail January 24, 2013
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The experience of a happy au pair year is its own reward. And extending this positive experience is a great way to turn this reward into a bonus. When an au pair and a host family extend their contract with each other for an additional 6, 9, or 12 months, everybody gets a bonus. The […]

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First Time Host Mom Asks: Extension Au Pair or Brand New One? (Poll)

by cv harquail March 4, 2012
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Can you remember back to when you were a first time host parent, still trying to figure out how you could make this au pair thing work for you? We have a family friend, MD, who’s wading into this for the first time, and she asked me to ask you: If you were a First […]

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She extended, and left her enthusiasm behind…

by cv harquail October 9, 2010

Readers, we got this request from one of our regular contributors, who needs our advice this time…  Her situation is long, and the story is complex, but I’m posting it all because (it seems to me) that the context matters. There are issues of schedule change, trauma in the Host Mom’s life, efforts to work […]

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Seasons of the Au Pair Year: What happens with extensions?

by cv harquail August 15, 2010
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Gianna popped in with a question about seasons of the au pair year, and how these change when you decide to extend with the same au pair… I added a bit to Gianna’s initial question, to flesh out the whole picture: It seems that the first year, for many people, the au pair relationship follows […]

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