Your Host Parent approach

Celebrate Democracy: Take Your Au Pair to a Polling Place

by cv harquail November 6, 2012
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(I realize I’m a little late with this one, but maybe there’s still time.) We Americans often take democracy for granted. Too many of us just never make it to the polls to vote, even in a close presidential race like this one. In my family, voting has always been a big deal. My dad […]

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What Can This Host Mom Learn From Her Experience?

by cv harquail October 19, 2012
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It can be so hard to do better with each au pair relationship. I know that I liked to kid myself sometimes that I was actually improving– a better handbook, a clearer understanding of our family’s needs, a nicer au pair room, a sense of the arc of the year, and so on. I actually […]

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What’s your Host Parent Mindset?

by cv harquail October 2, 2012
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If the world can be divided into two kinds of people, there are two types of Host Parents: Those who think they were born being perfectly good host parents, thankyouverymuch, and Those who are trying to learn how to be better host parents By virtue of being a reader of AuPairMom, you are obviously one […]

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3 Tips for Cross-Cultural Conversation

by cv harquail September 30, 2012
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When you and your au pair struggle to communicate — even when you both speak English resonably well– it can be hard to know whether the problem is “attitude” or “comprehension”. We see issue a lot in comments about au pairs who are given lists of tasks but don’t do them, or host parents who […]

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5 Secrets of Good Au Pair Host Parents

by cv harquail June 10, 2012
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I was tidying up my desk this morning, preparing to get back in the saddle with AuPairMom posts, and I found this post-it note to myself:   Did I ever write this post? I can’t tell, so here it is!   What makes for a Good Au Pair Host Parent? In my experience talking with […]

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Vacationing at DisneyWorld with your Au Pair in Tow: What’s worked for you?

by cv harquail March 5, 2012
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I have a confession to make. My kids are 11 and 13, and I have never taken them to DisneyWhere. I probably never will. I know, it doesn’t count that I *have* taken them to see WIcked on Broadway– I’m still a bad mom. Worse, I don’t know much about the excitements and demands of […]

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Should You Wake Your Au Pair When You Leave For Work REALLY Early?

by cv harquail February 19, 2012
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Hi AuPairMom, We are welcoming our first au pair in about 3 weeks, and we are very excited. Your blog really helped us decide that this was the right type of child care for our family. We need someone with scheduling flexibility, because we have an always-changing, somewhat odd work week. I have to leave […]

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When Host Parents Divorce, should Au Pairs testify?

by cv harquail February 2, 2012
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Divorces test all relationships within a family. As the primary/initial family relationship dissolves or is destroyed, all other relationships get implicated. Even the relationships with Au Pairs. Previously, when we’ve discussed how divorces affect au pairs, we’ve mentioned things like crazy schedules, divided loyalties, concerns about finances and stability, and even whether one parent can […]

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Thriving despite conflicts: 9 Rules of Negotiating with Your Au Pair

by cv harquail January 29, 2012
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One of the crazy benefits of being an au pair mom or dad is that host parenting gives us many chances to practice skills that make us better everywhere in our lives. Chief among the skills we get to practice is how to negotiate. By using conflicts with our au pairs (or even simple disagreements […]

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Would you ask your Au Pair to help out at someone else’s party?

by cv harquail January 22, 2012
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Do you think it’s appropriate to ask an au pair to got to your kids’ school and help out at a birthday event there, for someone else’s kids? Here’s the email that prompts the question: Dear AuPairMom – I am mostly satisfied with the family I am working for. We’ve had a few problems but […]

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