Health & Medical concerns

Smelly House: Host Mom Hates Air Fresheners

by cv harquail September 11, 2014
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Attention readers: This second post about smells and host parents is absolutely unrelated to the previous post.  The Au Pair in the first post and the Au Pair here are not the same person, and the host parents aren’t the same people. It was coincidence that TACL brought up this issue last week….I already had […]

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The Fainting Au Pair: Should we rematch?

by cv harquail May 5, 2014
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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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8 Ways To Teach Your Au Pair About Food Safety

by cv harquail February 19, 2014
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Milk left out on the counter. Raw eggs in salad dressing. Undercooked chicken thighs. And of course, the picnic lunch with macaroni salad but no ice pack. All of these are food safety disasters. If your Au Pair hasn’t been taught about food safety, though, he or she might think these are harmless mistakes. That […]

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We Can’t Afford Alternative Childcare While Our Au Pair’s Broken Arm Mends. What to do?

by cv harquail February 16, 2014
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Dear AuPairMoms— Could we re-open a topic from August 2012 on what to do when an au pair breaks a bone,  is in a cast and can’t drive? In that situation the au pair only had three weeks left, and the comments in large part were geared toward that scenario — mine’s a bit different. […]

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Au Pair Candidate with Uncommon Medical Issue: Would you match with her?

by cv harquail January 30, 2014
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We get a lot of questions from au pair candidates who wonder whether anyone will match with them, given that they ______(fill in the blank here). For example, we just got an email (below) from an au pair with (non-swearing) Tourette’s Syndrome, who wonders whether host parents will consider her application. When you have an […]

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When a Host Parent Is Diagnosed With Asbergers, How Does This Reshape The Au Pair Relationship?

by cv harquail October 13, 2013
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We’ve had some wonderfully honest, thoughtful and insightful conversations here on Au Pair Mom about how to manage relationship dynamics with Au Pairs who have emotional challenges or histories,  and children who have cognitive or developmental ‘special needs’ — chronic cognitive or relational challenges that families need to support. But we haven’t even talked about […]

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What To Do When Your Au Pair Doesn’t Bathe

by cv harquail January 20, 2013
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Some issues are just too awkward to talk about. But we have to talk about them anyway, because these are the very issues that keep host parents and au pairs from really connecting. We’ve hit some of these issues already– contraceptives, personal safety, swimming when she has her period (I told you they were awkward!), […]

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Drastic Changes: When a Host Parent Gets Sick

by cv harquail October 16, 2011
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Two difficult challenges have hit my friends this past month. Last week a friend’s BIL slipped off a ladder, and is now in an intensive care unit coping with serious head trauma. His recovery will be long, difficult and uncertain. Earlier in the month, a friend’s sister was diagnosed with cancer, for the third time. […]

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What if you Au Pair thinks your child might need professional help?

by cv harquail June 17, 2011
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Our au pairs get an up-close and personal view of our families. Sometimes they see things we don’t see, maybe even things we don’t want to see for ourselves. Because au pairs interact with our children when we parents are often not around, and they spend longs days with our kids, they may notice things […]

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Choosing an Au Pair: Will being “in recovery” from an eating disorder ruin my chances to Au Pair?

by cv harquail May 22, 2011
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Would you match with a candidate who told you that she’d been treated for anorexia, and was currently healthy and in recovery? (Keep in mind that being “in recovery” for an anorexic is like being ‘”in recovery” for an alcoholic, in the sense that you are never “over it”, but always in the process of […]

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