Foundations & Basics

Explaining “America” to Your Au Pair

by cv harquail June 30, 2017

4th of July is one of my favorite holidays… all about family, community and abstract patriotic notions. 4th of July is also the holiday when I am most likely to embarrass my children– apparently, as they get older, it is no longer cool to have a mom who dresses up in red, white & blue […]

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Help A Brand-New Au Pair Get Better At Her Job

by cv harquail June 24, 2017

It’s not easy to settle in, whether you’re the new Au Pair or the First Time Host Mom. The American college student who sent this email hasn’t had the benefit of a formal Au Pair orientation, and I suspect that her host mom hasn’t had the benefit of a local counselor or group of moms […]

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Au Pair Education Requirement: Any new strategies for meeting this?

by cv harquail June 23, 2017

Edgemont_Elementary_School,_Montclair_NJ_(2006)

School’s Out For Summer! You could feel the excitement from each and every kid that streamed out of Edgemont School yesterday, as they brought armloads of art projects and long-forgotten sweaters out to their parents and caregivers at pickup. And lordy don’t I know that feeling… there is no greater pleasure than hitting the “post” […]

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Counting On-Duty Au Pair Hours When You’re In A Car or Plane

by cv harquail March 15, 2017

How does your family handle the Au Pair’s time spent with the family over a long car or plane trip? Formally and officially, we are supposed to count all of this time as “on duty” hours. But, if you have a long haul to get to your vacation destination, you can use up a […]

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What If Only One Host Parent is a U.S. Citizen?

by cv harquail February 28, 2017

Here’s one of those “finer points” of the Host Parenting situation where we need some of you Agency experts to weigh in. The US State Department (not the Au Pair Agencies themselves) “(1) Require that the host parents are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents”. What happens when one parent IS a citizen but the […]

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With Your Au Pair’s Social Life, Be Caring Not Controlling

by cv harquail January 28, 2017

If you can trust your Au Pair with your children, can’t you trust her with her own Saturday night plans? I wondered this, when I read the email (below) from the OverMonitoredAuPair. I am a BIG believer in knowing how to find your Au Pair in an emergency during his/her off-duty time. I am a […]

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How to Help Your Au Pair Appreciate the “Au Pair Car”

by cv harquail January 20, 2017

We all want to be generous, and we all want to be appreciated. And, there’s nothing like having a third car for your au pair to use to make you aware of the tension that can exist when you want to be generous and want to be appreciated. When we bought our first Volvo wagon […]

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Au Pair Getting High In Our Home

by cv harquail October 9, 2016

When we know an Au Pair is doing something that contradicts our house rules, but we aren’t able to present positive proof of this, what can we do? We don’t want to be accusatory. But then again, we’re sure we’re right. We don’t need to see him or her rinsing out the bong in the […]

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Don’t Evaluate Your Au Pair’s Performance

by cv harquail October 5, 2016

Occasionally I get emails from Host Parents wondering about “performance reviews” for au pairs. These emails ask whether anyone has a form they might share that helps parents evaluate Au Pairs on their performance of specific tasks. Or, they ask if we have a feedback tracking system, where parents can set goals for au pairs’ performance […]

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