Choosing an Au Pair

Is It This Particular Au Pair, or Is An Au Pair Just Not Right for Me?

by cv harquail December 31, 2014
8031936764_d3d975b5bf_z

Au Pairs “as a concept” and a particular au pair in real life are two very different things to imagine in your world. An Au Pair “as a concept” is the idea of a young adult living with you as part of the family and as an employee childcare provider, sharing your food, sharing your […]

73 comments Read the full article →

Male Au Pairs: Not just for male host kids, by ReturningHM

by cv harquail December 16, 2014
just peeking

When ReturningHM offered to write a post about her experiences with male au pairs, I was delighted. Many new readers find AuPairMom by searching the term  ‘male au pair’. There simply isn’t that much information out there about the benefits and challenges of male au pairs vs female ones. Folks are curious about what it […]

97 comments Read the full article →

Your Au Pair Handbook: Can it help you screen for the right candidate?

by cv harquail November 1, 2014
2145053688_18922419cf_z

Your Host Family Handbook can be a good tool for screening prospective Au Pair Candidates. Handbooks generally outline the concrete expectations of a host family as well as the particular rules and parameters that an au pair is expected to work with.  Sure, a long handbook might seem daunting to an au pair candidate, but […]

88 comments Read the full article →

Beware the Homesick Au Pair: Screen it out, or wait it out?

by cv harquail October 28, 2014
4335831783_7bee845569_z

Homesickness is completely predictable Homesickness is something that every au pair should anticipate, and that every au pair should make a commitment to work through. If you’re signing up to spend a year in another country, in another family, then you are committing to working through any homesickness that occurs between month 1 and month […]

52 comments Read the full article →

LGBT Au Pairs: Have Host Parents’ thoughts changed on whether sexual orientation matters?

by cv harquail October 5, 2014
rainbow

Given the pace of changes in the US around issues of marriage equality and the recognition of trans* people, an au pair writes to ask whether Host Parents views have changed: I found one post about the topic from 2010. I am curious if something has changed for HF’s? I am gay but none knows […]

85 comments Read the full article →

3 Features of Au Pairing: Which One Challenges You?

by cv harquail September 1, 2014
2176773871_97a17213ea_z

What are the real, important differences between Au Pairs and other kinds of childcare providers, like nannies, babysitters, or childcare centers? What really influences the challenges that host parents and au pairs face when it comes to making this ‘the best year ever’? It used to be that when people asked me how having an […]

19 comments Read the full article →

How to Decline an Au Pair Match — Politely

by cv harquail August 26, 2014
7982702742_b57e8ae424

No one wants to be rejected — not au pairs and not host parents.   But reject each other we must, since we know that even a perfectly lovely candidate (in this case, either a host parent or a potential au pair) may just not feel like the right fit. But how can we let the […]

34 comments Read the full article →

“Pitching In”: What does that mean in your host family?

by cv harquail July 15, 2014
Print by OrangeTwist, available for purchase at Etsy

What does it mean to “pitch in” with host family chores? Pitching In (defn): To join the family in doing some everyday household upkeep, to help keep the household running smoothly In anticipation of an au pair question that will get posted later this week, I wanted to sketch out the basic advice (okay, my aupairmom […]

76 comments Read the full article →

Improving the Matching Process: 10 Things I Wish Au Pairs Would Do

by Texas HM May 21, 2014
5208973775_f0b6039b21_b.jpg

Matching well matters — for both Host Parents and Au Pairs. Asking good questions and getting thoughtful answers helps a lot when it comes to finding a good match, but there’s more that host parents and Au Pairs can do.  TexasHM had some great ideas (I italicized the points I particularly loved): “In the matching […]

113 comments Read the full article →

Choosing An Au Pair: Reading between the lines of an email reply

by cv harquail April 28, 2014
1522534302_44843c4da9_z

People tease me about the number of emoticons, doge gifs, and exclamation points I use in my email, but I refuse to give up on anything that might help me convey the feelings behind my words — and to avoid being misinterpreted. It’s happened to all of us, when we’ve rushed to reply, or we […]

59 comments Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →