Foundations & Basics

Family Handbook Ideas for Au Pairs Caring For Infants

by cv harquail June 25, 2014

Caring for an infant, especially when the parents are brand-new to parenting, can pose special challenges for an Au Pair. Au Pairs in these situations will already be ‘infant-qualified’ — meaning that they’ve had direct experience with infants and will know how to do all the basics. But because parents are still feeling their way […]

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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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Your Summer Re-Set Conversation: What should you cover?

by cv harquail June 2, 2014

Summertime, and the living is… different. Whether it’s our kids’ schedule, our own work schedule, or even just the return of the Good Humor Man, the start of summer opens up a chance to adjust how things are going with our Au Pairs. As our family’s patterns change, we need to bring our au pairs along with […]

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What to do when an Au Pair doesn’t spend her whole education budget

by cv harquail May 26, 2014

The cost of college credits is so high, it’s hard to imagine that some au pairs don’t spend their entire Education allowance ($500) on meeting their education requirement. But, sometimes an au pair gets fees waived or they find a program with lower costs. Some au pairs take classes (like ESL) that get them credits […]

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The Fainting Au Pair: Should we rematch?

by cv harquail May 5, 2014

Reliable, predictable, kind, and safe — that’s what we need childcare to be. So what happens when we have an au pair who we like, who’s doing a great job, and then all of a sudden turns out to have a condition that is unpredictable, that makes her unreliable, and that makes you worry that […]

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The Academically-Ambitious Au Pair: Options for serious education during an Au Pair Year

by cv harquail April 11, 2014

The education requirement for au pairs can be a bit of a fig leaf. The requirement makes Au Pairs “look like” exchange students for the purposes of Homeland Security and Immigration, even while the au pairs are here for what amounts to a full-time job. Most of the time, an au pair’s education is […]

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Photographing Host Children: What’s appropriate to shoot, and what’s appropriate to share?

by cv harquail April 7, 2014

All children are beautiful. When we, our au pairs, our families, and our friends see our beautiful child, it’s oh-so-tempting to try to hold that image of beauty still, to want to preserve it as a memory forever. When we adore these children, when we are proud of them, when we love them, we want […]

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When Your Au Pair Resents Working on Saturday Nights

by cv harquail April 2, 2014

There are two kinds of host family schedules: Host Families that use up all of their 45 hours during the host parents’ Mon – Fri work week, and Host Families that don’t. I can pretty much guarantee you that if your host family schedule is the second kind, and you try to use your au […]

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Scheduling Your Au Pair: When does “On Duty” start and stop?

by cv harquail March 28, 2014

When does an au pair actually ‘start’ or ‘stop’ being on duty? When we’re counting up the hours in the week that we need childcare, it’s tempting to imagine that we can start and stop ‘on duty’ time right on the precise minute. How else are we to cover an entire week? I look back […]

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Blended Family Challenge: Half-Time Custody but Full Time Au Pair?

by cv harquail March 20, 2014

My partner and I have three daughters between us and are looking into the AuPair Educare program. All three of are girls are in school full time and we would essentially only need before and after care. The question is: We have our daughters every other week. We attempt to have all three of them […]

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