Cultural Exchange Challenges

Au Pairs Should Use Language that Host Kids Can Understand

by cv harquail September 23, 2014

Many families look for au pairs who can help their children learn a language other than English. The idea is that the au pair can speak to the child in the au pair’s first language, and teach the child the second language through everyday interactions. Conceptually, this makes sense. We do, after all, learn our […]

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3 Features of Au Pairing: Which One Challenges You?

by cv harquail September 1, 2014

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 […]

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Labor Day: An American Celebration of Workers

by cv harquail August 29, 2014

American Culture is on my mind today. Of the three big distinctions between Au Pair childcare and other childcare, the idea of cultural exchange often takes a back seat. One reason for ‘culture’ receding in to the background is that we regularly experience cultural differences and cultural exchange at the interpersonal level. Cultural exchange […]

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Talking Politics With Your Au Pair

by cv harquail July 3, 2014

“Obama never should have taken the soldiers out of Iraq.” So opined my neighbor’s au pair, over dinner last week. “Obama let the Iraq people down, because he promised that the US would protect their freedom,” she continued. My neighbor choked on her caesar salad, fighting back the urge to scream “Stop watching Fox News!“ […]

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Fun for the 4th: Bake a Flag Cake

by cv harquail July 1, 2014

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Does your Au Pair like to bake? Do your kids? If you’ve ever made a checkerboard cake, a heart-shaped cake, or a cake-like thing that looked vaguely like Thomas The Tank Engine, you have all the skills and equipment you need to make this very American beauty. The flag-making process and recipe come from the […]

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Get Your Au Pair an American Flag, says TexasHM

by cv harquail June 13, 2014

Happy Flag Day! Flag Day is a special day for our neighborhood — it’s my next-door neighbor and friend Michael’s birthday. Every year his wife decorates their front porch with flags and has the neighborhood over for cake to mark the dual celebration. But even without the cake, it’s still another fun reminder for […]

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Bilingualism Benefits Young Brains … and older ones, too.

by cv harquail June 3, 2014

From WarmStateMomma: For parents raising bilingual kids (or trying to) – I saw this article about a study on bilingualism: “Our study is the first to examine whether learning a second language impacts cognitive performance later in life while controlling for childhood intelligence,” said lead author Dr. Thomas Bak, of the University of Edinburgh, in […]

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

by cv harquail April 28, 2014

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 […]

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Themes, Perspectives, and Cultural Stereotypes, Ideas from TexasHM

by cv harquail April 25, 2014

Just days before a demonstration of how stereotypes about certain nationalities can feel unkind and unhelpful, frequent contributor TexasHM sent me this guest blog post. Perfect timing! We’re always working to generalize wisdom from our individual experiences, so stereotypes and national personalities are a common topic of conversation among folks in the AuPair community. TexasHM […]

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Welcome Your Au Pair With A Custom Google Map

by cv harquail March 19, 2014

HostMom Pippa takes advantage of easy online tools, and comes up with *surely* one of the greatest ideas for helping your au pair visualize her/his new surroundings (aka your world). She recommends creating a Custom Google Map: An easy way to share information with your incoming AP before he or she arrives is to create […]

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