Foundations & Basics

Alas, One Au Pair Can’t Cover Your “40 Hour” Work Week

by cv harquail September 5, 2016

It’s a horrible reality: Even if you have your au pair work a full 45 hours a week, if you work 40 hours a week yourself, your au pair is not going to be able to cover all your childcare needs. Every one of us full time working parents knows– that job is supposedly “40 […]

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How Many is Too Many Household Accidents Before Rematching an Au Pair?

by cv harquail July 30, 2016

I’d say however many it took to get you to write this email, SafetyConsciousHostMom. Any email that asks “how many kitchen fires are too many?” gets my automatic reply “Rematch Now”. We are a family with an 18 year old bro pair who’s been so-so. He’s not super great with the kids or the chores, but […]

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Helping an Au Pair Whose Host Dad Is Acting Inappropriately

by cv harquail June 26, 2016

(Reposting from its previous place in another thread:) Writes Host Mom X, I need some urgent advice on an uncomfortable situation, with a new au pair and her Host Dad: One of our au pair’s besties recently ended her year, and our au pair has taken that host family’s new au pair under her wing. […]

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When & Why Do You Really Need an Au Pair Who Can Swim?

by cv harquail June 25, 2016

A new host mom sent a long email about several challenges she’s experiencing with her Au Pair (and we’ll get to them in the next week or two). Her concern about her new Au Pair’s swimming skills stood out to me, maybe because my neighbors down the street — with a new au pair– have […]

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Keeping Au Pair To 45 Hours When Kids are Not In School : Ideas to Offset Time?

by cv harquail June 9, 2016

I need suggestions on what I can do to off set my Au Pair’s hours! With the summer months upon us and the end of the school year, I am stressed out about how to off set my Au Pair’s hours so she does not exceed the 45 hours a week. Both my husband and […]

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New Au Pair Has Whooping Cough and Will Be Infectious for Up to 12 Weeks!

by cv harquail May 9, 2016

Seriously Host Parents — can’t you send me emails about dilemmas that can be announced with catchy headlines??? Very rarely am I able to say — “I never heard of a problem like this before.” While I like novelty as much as the next American, I’m not happy to see this problem now. This is a […]

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How Soon To Schedule Au Pair’s First Day Off?

by cv harquail April 24, 2016

Venturing into the grey areas of Au Pair regulations and scheduling, a First Time Host Mom asks– how many days might a brand new au pair work before she must be given a day off? (I phrased it differently in the headline of this post, but essentially it’s the same question). She’s thinking about […]

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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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Share Your Schedules for Training Your AuPair — The First Week

by cv harquail April 3, 2016

Looking over the many posts about getting started with an au pair, I made an interesting discovery: We have no posts with actual, recommended schedules. We have one really solid post from 2008 (!) where I list 5 strategies for orienting your au pair in the first week: 1. Start with the typical day’s tasks. […]

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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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