Notes on the Blog: Somehow, we broke the Interwebz

by cv harquail March 27, 2015

I don’t know what happened, and I don’t know what fixed it back up to 98% of what it was before, but sorry about this morning’s long, long, long outage. Also, apologies to whomever commented between last night and noon today– your insights were lost in the ‘series of tubes’ that make up the worldwideweb. […]

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Reading the Tea Leaves to Find Your Perfect Au Pair

by cv harquail March 26, 2015
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I am driving myself crazy with thinking through this matching process, but this current fabulous AP kind of messes with all my algorithms and criteria. Maybe it’s just a one-time thing to get someone like this. … Maybe we are all just reading tea leaves and astrological forecasts.  I wish I knew that were the […]

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Au Pair Asks: Should I offer to rematch to solve a driving problem?

by cv harquail March 24, 2015
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Hi Au Pair Mom, I am currently an Au Pair on the East Coast. I arrived in Jan 2014 and extended another 6 months. Everything is amazing and we have had no issues in the time I have been here. But now a pretty big problem has arisen and I dont know what to do. […]

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How Should Au Pair Host Parents Respond to Charges Against the Au Pair Program?

by cv harquail March 23, 2015
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While I was away last week, a very disturbing post hit the Washington Post Wonkblog, where the title shares its central claim: “Au pairs provide cheap childcare. Maybe illegally cheap.” In the post, the author describes a class action lawsuit being brought against US Au Pair Agencies by a Colorado group called Towards Justice, on behalf of […]

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Why Your Au Pair Should Go To Your Kid’s School Play …

by cv harquail March 15, 2015
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… and all sorts of other family events. If having an Au Pair is a Cultural Exchange, school and community events are an important part of the excitement. Hey, I’ve endured enjoyed  enough grammar school orchestra concerts to be an expert on ways to butcher the violin parts of The Str Spangled Banner. But if […]

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Unhappy Au Pairs Can Start “Reset” Conversations Too

by cv harquail March 13, 2015
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You don’t have to be a host parent to notice a problem in your Host Family-Au Pair relationship. Obviously, Au Pairs notice problems too. That’s why Au Pairs should try some using some of the very same tools we recommend to host parents, tools like weekly meetings, written schedules, and the always-useful reset conversation. One […]

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Helping Au Pairs Teach Second-Languages to Kids

by cv harquail March 12, 2015
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Does anyone feel like s/he’s cracked the nut on having an au pair help teach a child a second language? Many host parents chose au pairs with this goal in mind, knowing these key things: Au Pairs also need to speak English so that they can achieve their language learning goals Few Au Pairs are taught […]

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When Your Au Pair Complains About A Fair Schedule

by cv harquail March 9, 2015
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File this under: “Grrrrrr.”  You are a lovely family with an adorable child.  You offer a reasonably cushy schedule to your au pair. Most days it’s 2 hours in the morning and 4- 4 1/2 in the afternoon/evening. You go out some weeks nights here and there, to book club or (gasp) to the gym.  And […]

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Fun Au Pair Activities for Monthly Cluster Meetings– ideas?

by cv harquail March 8, 2015
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Dear AuPairMom and Readers–   I enjoy reading the blog and learning from all your advice.  I wonder if we could crowd-source some ideas?   Our Au Pair Community Counselor is a lovely person, but sometimes she seems a little out of touch with what Au Pairs might think is fun or useful. Our Counselor […]

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Au Pair Declines to Extend, Now Her Host Parents Are Mean

by cv harquail March 6, 2015
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When you have an Au Pair you like, the idea of extending for another 6, 9, or 12 months seems so tempting! We can imagine ourselves just gliding into that extra time, relieved of the burden of finding, training, and adapting to a new au pair. So when we ask our Au Pairs to extend— […]

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