Guidelines & rules

Your Au Pair’s Guests: A few guidelines….

by cv harquail June 17, 2009

I just love reading all these posts nodding my head knowing I am not alone in my feelings! One topic that I think may have been covered lightly is Out of Town Guests. Our Au Pair is having A TON of guests! She has her Step Father coming, a single girlfriend, a married couple, her […]

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Extending– without the Agency. Yes or no?

by cv harquail June 17, 2009

We are in month 8 with our first au pair (she’s frmo Thailand), who has been great. We would like to extend, and she would like to stay for at least six months more, but she would like to do so outside of the agency. Apparently a friend of hers, at the end of her […]

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Swim Safely, by following my sister’s rules

by cv harquail June 10, 2009

My sister Julia and her family spend the bulk of their summer at the New Jersey shore, biking between the pool at my dad’s house, the pool at the beach club, the river and the ocean. Only one of these locations has professional lifeguards– the rest of the time we all depend on sensible swimmers […]

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Learning about the “Education Requirement”

by cv harquail June 1, 2009

The education requirement for au pairs on one of those features of the program that can be misleading, both for families and for au pairs themselves. My sense is that the US, the agencies and the LCCs all know that meeting the requirements with ‘only’ $500 tuition credit is almost impossible. And, they rely on […]

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If you were an Au Pair: Agency or Website?

by cv harquail May 18, 2009

On the heels of our conversation about whether or not we as host families prefer agencies or websites to find our au pairs , comes an email from a potential au pair on the same topic: Next year I plan to get experience as an Aupair. I’m from Australia, and it has been very hard […]

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Should you share your au pair?

by cv harquail May 14, 2009

Good friends share with each other… tips about shoe sales, complaints about PTA events, and the whipped cream on their Frappucinos (yes, really. Ask Jenny.) But, as a good friend, should you share your au pair? (Note that it’s against the guidelines of most agencies for your au pair to work for anyone but you. […]

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You’re on YouTube! Is that okay?

by cv harquail May 13, 2009

In the post Help: My Au Pair is Blogging about My Family!, we’ve addressed the question of how folks feel about their au pairs blogging about the family and/or posting information about the family on Facebook or MySpace. Lots of host parents weighed in with their opinions. We agreed that your family should have a […]

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Advice Wanted: Should I intervene in another Au Pair-Host Family situation?

by cv harquail May 7, 2009

What, if anything, do you do if you become aware of a situation where another host family is taking advantage of their Au Pair? Here are the specifics, as shared by our Host Mom: … A friend that my Au Pair met at the Au Pair "school" in NY just recently moved to our state […]

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Setting Guidelines when your Au Pair has guests

by cv harquail April 23, 2009

When an au pair has guests come to visit, it is tempting for the Host Parents to give the au pair lots of ‘extras’– extra time off, extra flexibility, extra food and space, and basically to try to accommodate their au pair’s expected desire to spend time with the visiting friend or family member. This […]

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Scheduling your Au Pair to be on duty when you are at home…

by cv harquail April 16, 2009

I got a bit of a chuckle when I saw this topic suggestion on the Skribit form: “Should you make your au pair work on weekends if both parents are at home doing nothing?” The topic suggestion was anonymous, but if I had to guess I’d say it was from an au pair. Why? Because […]

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