Can this relationship be saved?

5 Key Strategies For Building A Strong Relationship With Your Au Pair

by cv harquail November 8, 2012

Dear AuPairMom Readers– I need your advice for summarizing host parent wisdom. Next Tuesday night, I’m scheduled to give a talk at The Modern Village, a parenting workshop series, about being an effective Host Parent. Back when I agreed to give the talk, I was sure I’d have a lot of ideas to share with […]

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When Your Au Pair Complains About The Schedule

by cv harquail October 31, 2012

Even when we host parents follow all the rules about scheduling, we can still run into trouble when au pairs begin to resent that their on-duty schedule cuts into their off-duty social time. Whether it’s a Saturday night that you need her to work, a school holiday he too thinks he should have ‘off’, or […]

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Every Parent’s Nightmare (Trigger Alert)

by cv harquail October 26, 2012

This is the kind of post I never wanted to write, but I expect some of us will need a place to express our horror and our very deep sadness about the murder of two NYC children by their nanny. Please do not read any further if you would prefer to avoid this issue.

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What Can This Host Mom Learn From Her Experience?

by cv harquail October 19, 2012

It can be so hard to do better with each au pair relationship. I know that I liked to kid myself sometimes that I was actually improving– a better handbook, a clearer understanding of our family’s needs, a nicer au pair room, a sense of the arc of the year, and so on. I actually […]

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The Five Actions of Gratitude

by cv harquail September 27, 2012

Nothing takes the sting out of tough interaction with your au pair than a moment of gratitude for all that s/he does for your and your family. Studies show that regularly reflecting on things that are good and that you can be grateful for help to keep you in a more positive place, no matter […]

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When Matching with an Au Pair, Which Signals to Trust?

by cv harquail August 28, 2012

Each matching cycle, au pair host families get more and more information about au pair candidates to use when we’re making decisions. Where once we had blurry photocopies of handwritten applications sent through the mail (yes, really!), we now have digital files, translated reference letters, online photo collages, au pair application videos, facebook searches, instant […]

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Is it the au pair’s schedule or is it her attitude?

by cv harquail August 25, 2012

(Sorry All- I know the formatting is messed up. So much for trying to post from the Garden State Parkway. Here it is, in odd form, until I can fix it tomorrow. ;-) ) Sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s driving the behavior of an au pair ( or anyone else for that matter, but […]

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Help Your Au Pair Plan for a Fun Summer

by cv harquail June 17, 2012

As per usual, the summer has snuck up on me. Even though Target is already setting up the ‘back to school’ supplies display, I still haven’t gotten all the swimsuits and suncreen out of storage. And this week marks the last day of school! Thank goodness we have only one week of unstructured vacation days […]

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How should an Au Pair handle travelling with the Host Family, for 5 weeks?

by cv harquail May 10, 2012

Au Pair Somebody posed this question on a different post, and I’m repositioning it here, along with the responses from the APM community. Please join the conversation! Well this is my situation and I am so pissed off because it took me by surprise! My host family decided to move from Colorado to Virginia in […]

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