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

Host Family dynamics

Our Au Pair is Dating My Husband’s Close Friend. Now what?

by cv harquail February 4, 2012

And speaking of trying to maintain some privacy around ones adult social life, Here’s an email that has me completely stumped.  How do they stay “host parents” to their au pair, and friends with their friend, and have any separate adult social life? We really need your ideas here, folks. Dear Au Pair Mom, I [...]

1 comment Read the full article →

Be a Wiser Host Parent in 2012: A Dozen Questions for Reflection

by cv harquail December 30, 2011

What has happened in the last year that’s helped you learn to be a better host parent? Or if not “better”,  just a wee bit wiser? if you’re like most of us, you’ve felt delighted, relieved, frustrated, annoyed, grateful, and more — all because of your relationship(s) with your au pair(s). As part of our [...]

6 comments Read the full article →

Drastic Changes: When a Host Parent Gets Sick

by cv harquail October 16, 2011

Two difficult challenges have hit my friends this past month. Last week a friend’s BIL slipped off a ladder, and is now in an intensive care unit coping with serious head trauma. His recovery will be long, difficult and uncertain. Earlier in the month, a friend’s sister was diagnosed with cancer, for the third time. [...]

14 comments Read the full article →

Who counts as an “American” family?

by cv harquail September 19, 2011

I imagine that every au pair has an idea of what her or his “ideal” host family should be like. The assortment of children, the family’s location, their personality, their basic household rules… all of this factors in. But how much do you think it matters that the family be “American”-American, rather than German-American or [...]

15 comments Read the full article →

What the best way to Pre-Match with an Au Pair, before connecting to an Agency?

by cv harquail September 1, 2011

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could meet a really terrific young person from anther country, discover that you had complementary world views, and THEN go through an official agency to engage him or her as an au pair? From time to time, we get questions from either parents or potential au pairs about how [...]

17 comments Read the full article →

Struggling to Communicate With Host Dad

by cv harquail August 5, 2011

Every host parent has his or her own approach to interacting with their au pair. Our personalities affect some of this, but even more important is who has taken which role in the host parents – au pair relationship. When adults team up to become parents, homemakers and breadwinners, they divvy up these roles so [...]

11 comments Read the full article →

What can Host Parents Do about Deceptive Agency Practices?

by cv harquail April 14, 2011

Readers, I must admit that these stories of being screwed by both agency & au pair get me upset. Thank goodness these stories are more rare than the terrific au pair and the perfectly fine au pairs we have little reason to need advice about. We all know that most au pairs, and most agency [...]

34 comments Read the full article →

When Host Parents Disagree, once an Au Pair has let them down

by cv harquail January 29, 2011

When there is more than one host parent in the household, it’s important for host parents to present a united front. Parents & Partners need to agree on household rules, behavioral expectations, and childcare preferences, and communicate in agreement to the au pair. When host parents disagree, it is impossible for an au pair to [...]

21 comments Read the full article →

How can we prepare our Au Pair for significant disruption?

by cv harquail January 4, 2011

Life brings us wave after wave of change. To move forward, we have to adapt to changes that happen to us and to changes that we make ourselves. And, as parents, we have to help our families anticipate and adapt to the changes we see coming, and to all the surprises we’re not quite able [...]

32 comments Read the full article →

My Future Host Mom’s Sister is Creeping Me Out

by cv harquail November 28, 2010

Okay, “creeping me out” is clearly an American idiom that I have supplied as a headline, but that phrase seems to capture the dynamic going on for this cautious au pair. She’s matched with a family, and getting to know them through emails, etc. before she joins the family in a few months. The family [...]

10 comments Read the full article →

← Previous Entries