Cultural Exchange Challenges

Cultural Exchange: American kids react to breakfasts from around the world

by cv harquail February 17, 2015

Cultural Exchange always feels more concrete when it’s translated into food. Food preferences, food differences, food customs, and beyond. With a hattip to Mark Frauenfelder at BoingBoing, here’s a video that reminded me of the first time I had fishpaste from a tube, on a business trip to Sweden. I wonder how many […]

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Help Your Au Pair Take Snow Days In Stride

by cv harquail January 19, 2015

Au Pairs enjoy their first snowfall au pair advice low cost childcare

Few events clarify the gap between how working parents and their school age kids respond to changes than the announcement of a snow day. When I was little, I thought snow days were magical. An overwhelming amount of snow combined with a day off from school seemed like a gift from the heavens — to […]

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Is It Too Late To Extend? Any J-1 Workarounds?

by cv harquail January 18, 2015

Imagine it — you have an au pair you love. She didn’t want to extend. Now she’s changed her mind, but the agency says it’s too late. Is it really too late? Dear Au Pair Mom– We just ended the year with the world’s best au pair. She is a part of our family. The […]

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Lost Passport Delays Au Pair’s Arrival. Should we match or move on?

by cv harquail January 17, 2015

Dear Au Pair Moms– We’ve got a crazy delay in our Au Pair’s arrival that messes up my carefully made plans. Specifically, we are looking at a 3-5 week gap, maybe longer, to figure out childcare and wait for our au pair who lost her visa. Can you advise me what to do? Our old au […]

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Au Pair Host Parent Word for the Year: Hygge

by cv harquail January 2, 2015

Last New Year many of use chose a few ‘words of the year’ to help keep us focused on our values and goals as host parents (and people!). Micro-affirmations like “3 Words“, Core Desired Feelings , and even just a parenting mantra help us make small changes in our habits that, over time, can help us grow. […]

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Traditions with a Twist: A Holiday Game with your Au Pair, guest post by Cristina Sierra

by cv harquail December 12, 2014

Long time contributor-under-a-nom-de-mom, Cristina Sierra shares this holiday idea: A “Mad” Twist on ‘T’was The Night Before Christmas’ Here’s a creative way to introduce your Au Pair to a US holiday tradition, namely the poem “T’was the night before Christmas” – by making it his / her own. How? Easy – just add Mad Libs. By […]

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Create a Holiday Tradition– Just for your Au Pair

by cv harquail December 10, 2014

You were wondering when I’d start the holiday posts … and here’s the first one! When new people enter our families, a great way to welcome them is to include them explicitly in our family holiday celebrations. Efforts like: Creating a Christmas stocking for your au pair to hang along with the kids’, Getting an additional […]

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

by cv harquail October 28, 2014

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 […]

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3 Easy Ways to Help Your Au Pair Use Your Home Appliances Correctly

by cv harquail October 10, 2014

American appliances have too many options. Having endless options is great for getting just the right setting for a specific task, but it becomes quite a problem when you’re forever trying to remember which combinations of buttons and levers to press. Between our vacuum cleaner (5 attachments, 3 wands and 5 buttons), our washer (23 […]

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