Caring for children

Au Pair Abruptly Quits, then wants to come back to see kids. Really? (poll)

by cv harquail January 28, 2010

Here’s a painful situation, about which this host mom could use some good advice. I’m sure that this kind of situation has happened to other families who’ve gone into rematch [Something similar happened to us with our flame-out au pair, and so reading this mom’s email got me all mad all over again. What went […]

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Protect Your Au Pair’s Off-Duty Time

by cv harquail January 11, 2010

Au Pairs work hard. When they are off duty, they need their downtime. But, if they’re good au pairs, your kids probably like them and enjoy spending time interacting with them. Kids don’t always know the difference between on-duty and off-duty, so it’s our job as host parents to help au pairs protect their downtime. […]

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Beyond the Chauffeur: Benefits of Au Pairs when your kids are teens

by cv harquail November 3, 2009

Au Pairs can be great companions and caregivers to older children…. and by older, I’m thinking teens. Yeah, yeah, teens think they are old enough to do without childcare — they can be at home by themselves, cook their own meals, get their homework done, and walk around with earbuds blocking out the rest of […]

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My Au Pair Won’t Get a Flu Shot … and we have an Infant. Now what?

by cv harquail October 15, 2009

There are several situations where getting a flu vaccine is a MUST— and one of those is if you care for a child under 6 months old. These littlest ones are uniquely vulnerable to both the regular flu and the H1N1 virus– because they are too young to be vaccinated themselves. Adults who care for […]

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Flu Shots for Your Au Pair: Polls

by cv harquail October 15, 2009

Let’s “take the temperature” of the AuPairMom community… and see what’s happening in your home about the flu vaccine and the H1N1 vaccine… 3 Reasons to Take Your Au Pair for a Flu Shot (AuPairMom.com)

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3 Reasons to Take Your Au Pair for a Flu Shot

by cv harquail October 14, 2009

We’re talking regular flu here, the annual kind, the kind that killed over 24,000 people in the US last winter. [ H1N1 coming up in the next post.] Sure, lots of the people who died were already weak from other illnesses. But many who died were healthy until they got influenza. You don’t have to […]

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Share the Cream: Give your AP meaningful work to do

by cv harquail September 28, 2009

One piece of advice my friend Adelaide gave me when we got our first au pair was “Share the Cream.” “Sharing the Cream” means sharing both the good parts (the cream) as well as the tough parts of a job or an experience. I don’t know where Adelaide came up with this saying, but it’s […]

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Scheduling your kid(s) week: Can the AP be in charge?

by cv harquail August 25, 2009

I have a question for those seasoned HP’s… School has started for us. I was really prepared with the summer calendar so that the kids (very different ages and needs) were stimulated and the AP wasn’t overwhelmed. But now, one child is in school and the other child is bored. The younger one goes to […]

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Feeding my kids too much fast food… Now what?

by cv harquail June 21, 2009

What is it about Au Pairs and fast food? Maybe because it’s so ‘American’, or because fast food outlets are ubiquitous, or because they are always warm, dry and welcoming public places, fast food emporiums seem to capture the attention of many an au pair. Au pairs seem to spend a lot of time at […]

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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 […]

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