Best Practices: Scheduling an Au Pair with a Stay-At-Home Mom

by cv harquail August 21, 2011
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We don’t really have a good term to describe moms who work in the home taking care of their home & family 24/7. Personally, I’m not a fan of the label “stay at home” mom, because it sounds like a command (Stay at home, mom!). And while work-at-home mom is descriptive– she’s a mom, working […]

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Tip for the Work-At-Home Parent with an Au Pair: Have Rules for Interruption

by cv harquail August 21, 2011

One of the hardest parts of  being a work-at-home parent is managing the interruptions. Not that we don’t love our kids, or want to see them and help them when they need us. But we need to be able to step into the “work mode” and stay there in order to get quality work done. […]

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Tip: Know When to Blame the System (part 1)

by cv harquail August 17, 2011
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Tonight I couldn’t sleep (feeling anxious about not posting on APM!) and so I tried to sneak downstairs so I could read the September issue of Vogue until I felt sleepy. Alas, no matter how softly I pressed my toes to the stairs, they groaned. They squeaked. They made so much noise that I could […]

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Struggling to Communicate With Host Dad

by cv harquail August 5, 2011

Every host parent has his or her own approach to interacting with their au pair. Our personalities affect some of this, but even more important is who has taken which role in the host parents – au pair relationship. When adults team up to become parents, homemakers and breadwinners, they divvy up these roles so […]

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Ending the Au Pair Year on the Right Note, by Host Mom TACL

by cv harquail July 29, 2011
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SuperHost Mom and contributing AuPairMom Advisor TACL (Taking a Computer Lunch) noticed that the blog has been rather quiet of late. Using her Masterpiece Theatre Poirot and Holmes skills, she correctly deduced that I’ve been overwhelmed enough by work that I haven’t been able to keep up. As always, lots of work is good for […]

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Family Invitations: Should your Au Pair be included?

by cv harquail July 27, 2011
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How do other people see your au pair? When you tell them that she or he should be treated as “part of the family”, what do your think that means to them? Grandparents, next door neighbors, teachers, and mail carriers all have their own ideas about whether, when, and how an au pair is or […]

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Uncommunicative Au Pair Turns Passive Aggressive

by cv harquail July 14, 2011
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I believe in talking things out when you and your au pair have challenges. Awkwardly, tentatively, enthusiastically, skillfully, however you can manage it. If we can’t share what we think and ask for what we need, we can’t improve relationships. That said, what can we do when talking doesn’t work? Sometimes our talk hits a […]

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How to Help Your Au Pair Connect With Your Kids

by cv harquail July 9, 2011
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How do you want your au pair to interact with your children? We spend a lot of time in our handbooks and meeting going over the house rules and general family principles, but often we leave implicit our our expectations for day-to-day kid – au pair interaction. Sure, we want each au pair-kid combo to […]

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When Facebook Information Raises Concerns: Should she match, or pass?

by cv harquail July 7, 2011
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Oh, the complexities of Facebook. And the generation gap. And the generation gap regarding Facebook. If it’s “true” that “young people” use Facebook differently from us (slightly older) parent people: How much should we infer from an au pair applicant’s Facebook page? Now that many of us ask to ‘friend’ our au pairs and prospective […]

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How Much Can an Au Pair Improve Sibling Dynamics?

by cv harquail June 28, 2011
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Each host family is its own self-reinforcing social system. Families have their own logic, their own climate, their own emotional rules, values, priorities, and patterns of behavior. Although the new person in the family/home means that everyone adjusts, au pairs adjust more to the family than the family adjusts to the au pair. Family systems […]

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