Common Challenges

Hello? Your Au Pair needs good “phone manners”

by cv harquail June 25, 2009

I just got off the phone with the au pair of one of my friends, and I had two serious problems during the call. Neither problem was caused by the au pair’s still-limited English. Both of these problems were cause by bad phone manners. Said another way, the problems would not even have occurred if […]

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Feeling Squished by Our Au Pair

by cv harquail June 23, 2009

What do you do when your au pair wants so much to be with you and your family that you never get any personal space? And, what happens when, in your efforts to be kind and generous, you continue to cede important personal space, events, and rituals to incorporate her, making your personal space smaller […]

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What skills has your Au Pair learned… from You?

by cv harquail June 20, 2009

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I was downstairs early this morning, in quiet reverie folding laundry. When I dragged the fitted sheets out of the dryer and started the elaborate and effective semaphore choreography that gets them folded into tidy piles, I was reminded of all of the crazy little things that I have taught my au pairs over the […]

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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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Helping a Shy Au Pair

by cv harquail June 18, 2009

Have you ever had an au pair who was so painfully shy that she was no fun to be around? Host mom Talliecat is struggling with this issue: Our au pair ( 20 yrs old) arrived from Finland around the middle of April. She has great childcare experience, however she is painfully shy. My husband […]

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Your Au Pair’s Guests: A few guidelines….

by cv harquail June 17, 2009

I just love reading all these posts nodding my head knowing I am not alone in my feelings! One topic that I think may have been covered lightly is Out of Town Guests. Our Au Pair is having A TON of guests! She has her Step Father coming, a single girlfriend, a married couple, her […]

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Working out isn’t working, is it?

by cv harquail June 11, 2009

What really counts as "work" and when are we willing to bend the rules? This mom’s getting a workout– and not the kind that makes your heart healthy. … "We are family members at our local gym, which provides childcare while parents are working out. We added our au pair to our membership (didn’t change […]

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Learning about the “Education Requirement”

by cv harquail June 1, 2009

The education requirement for au pairs on one of those features of the program that can be misleading, both for families and for au pairs themselves. My sense is that the US, the agencies and the LCCs all know that meeting the requirements with ‘only’ $500 tuition credit is almost impossible. And, they rely on […]

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All real, all the time

by cv harquail May 26, 2009

A regular reader and commenter sent me an email this morning asking whether the story posted with the poll is real, or whether I made it up. Dear readers, may I just say, you can’t make this s%*# up. I am as surprised as you are at what people are willing to put up with, […]

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What’s the cure for “Summer Fever”?

by cv harquail May 22, 2009

When seasons change, so do family schedules. When family schedules change, so do au pair schedules. And when au pair schedules change, sometimes you uncover a problem. For my family, there is a big difference between winter and summer. In the summer, we spend weekends and even some full weeks at my dad’s house at […]

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