Common Challenges

Any Way to Change Behavior of an Au Pair Who’s Always Late?

by cv harquail April 15, 2016

What do you do when you’ve organized yourself and been clear about your needs, but find yourself unable to influence the behavior of your Au Pair? When communication or training differences pop up, we usually go back to the basics: Do you have a handbook? Do you have regular check-in meetings? Were you clear about […]

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Addressing a Vast Gap Between Ethical Standards: Yours vs Your Au Pair’s

by cv harquail March 25, 2016

There are “cultural differences” and there are “philosophical differences”. With cultural differences, it’s less about “right” or “wrong” than about how folks prefer to do things. With philosophical differences, it’s all about right and wrong. So how do you manage when you discover that your au pair thinks something is perfectly fair to do, but […]

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Safety Tips for Au Pairs Using Tinder and Other Dating Apps

by cv harquail March 22, 2016

Used to be we’d only have to give our Au Pairs a safety lecture about drunk guys at bars who assume things when they hear the words “Au Pair”. Now, if our Au Pairs are using dating apps to meet people, we might have to expand our conversation about what’s safe and what’s appropriate. Yes, […]

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Creating an Au Pair – Host Parent Partnership that Doesn’t Exclude the Other Host Parent

by cv harquail February 12, 2016

In some families, parents aim to share childcare and home management equally. In other families, there is one parent (of the two, three or four) who serves as the “lead parent”. The Lead Parent is the one who runs the forgotten lunch over to school, stays home when a kid is sick, and manages the family’s childcare. […]

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Partnership Advice for Au Pair Host Parents

by cv harquail February 4, 2016

After our previous post, I went back to an old, old post to clip and repeat these key bits of advice for Host Parent Partners: Host Parent Partners need to confirm, explicitly, how they will work as partners as well as individuals to manage their Au Pair relationship. Nothing about how having an au pair (or […]

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Single Host Mom with UnAppreciative Au Pair: Can This Relationship Be Saved?

by cv harquail January 23, 2016

Dear Au Pair Mom Readers — I don’t know why I thought I was ready for this!! Friends of my parents have had wonderful experiences with their au pairs and I thought hosting an au pair would allow for my daughter to be at home another year while I returned to school. First, the positive: […]

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Should We Extend? Au Pair is Great, but also Boring

by cv harquail January 20, 2016

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I laughed out loud at the subject line of the email that sent this issue to Au Pair Mom. It’s almost — but not quite– a luxury to imagine being bothered by a “boring” Au Pair, if this Au Pair comes on the heels of a “Flameout”, a “Party Girl”, or a “Couch Potato”. Not […]

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When Parenting Styles Conflict

by cv harquail January 6, 2016

Au Pairs and Host Children need consistent expectations from Parents in order to do well. In families where both Host Parents have a similar parenting philosophy, or where one parent takes the “lead” and makes all the parenting decisions, ‘doing a great job’ is easier for Au Pairs. AuPairs need to adapt to only one parenting style, […]

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How To Count Au Pair Vacation Days

by cv harquail December 6, 2015

Please note: Check your Agency’s contract for their interpretation of vacation policies. These may vary from one Au Pair Agency to another. Here’s AuPairMom’s best shot at explaining the logic of vacation days… I’m being sensible, but not necessarily following the specifics of your Agency’s contract. There’s often confusion about how to count the number […]

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When Your Au Pair Streams Movies – Illegally

by cv harquail December 1, 2015

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Deciding whether or not to pay for the online media (movies, TV shows, music) that you consume seems to be a generational thing. Young people do it, we “olds” do not. Sure — once upon a time I used Napster (dating myself). Until we got a reminder from the University where I worked that using […]

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