Choosing an Au Pair

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 […]

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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 […]

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Matching: What should a potential au pair tell you about herself?

by cv harquail October 23, 2009

Coordinating with the previous posts about questions an Au Pair should ask a potential host family, what would you like an au pair to tell you about herself? There are perhaps 4,387 categories of things that an au pair could tell you about, so challenge yourself to offer maybe the top 2 or 3… This […]

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3 Questions an Au Pair should ask YOU to make a good match

by cv harquail October 22, 2009

If Skype didn’t exist, if email hadn’t been invented, and if we could only communicate with potential au pairs using short, really expensive long distance phone calls (anyone remember those days?), we wouldn’t have the luxury of long conversations to help us assess a good match. And since we do have that luxury– and so […]

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Good Bye, Good Luck from exAuPairMom

by cv harquail October 13, 2009

I always wonder about “the rest of the story” when I get a notice that someone has unsubscribed from the email newsletter .. for the reason that “the content is no longer valid”. I usually take that to mean “we don’t have an au pair anymore”. Over the weekend we got this letter from a […]

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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 […]

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Choosing an Au Pair: How to Avoid a Princess

by cv harquail September 26, 2009

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If only it were as easy as sticking a green vegetable underneath her mattress and waiting to see if she gets a good night’s sleep… We all want to avoid “the princess” – the au pair candidate who thinks the job is all about visiting the States, living in an American home, and having an […]

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Male Au Pairs: When would you hire one? (Poll)

by cv harquail September 22, 2009

Have you ever thought about hiring a male au pair? I haven’t considered it, since I have two girls and I’m looking for positive young women as role models…. but one of my girlfriends has a male au pair for their two sons, and she’s found that a male au pair has been just as […]

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Choosing an Au Pair: Religion as an Au Pair selection criterion

by cv harquail July 28, 2009

I’m A Believer. I believe that religion is something you should seriously consider when selecting an au pair. In my family’s experience, religion has been an important selection criterion — and also the source of some interesting relationship problems. Our experience Our family is of mixed religious traditions: I’m a christian with a lower case […]

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Finding Good Au Pair Candidates: Best Practices for each system

by cv harquail July 21, 2009

Happiness is Pretty Pink Yarn and a Purring Cat.... on Flickr - Photo Sharing!_1231093077702.jpeg

How about we sort out our advice to each other, based on the kind of system that our agencies/sites use? I’ve set up 3 posts, one each for: Finding Good Au Pair Candidates 1: Best Practices for the "1 at a time" system Finding Good Au Pair Candidates 2: Best Practices for the "they give […]

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