Au Pair Asks: How can I gently decline my Host Mom’s advice?

by cv harquail April 26, 2010
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One of my guilty pleasures as a host mom has been to think that I’ve been able to give my au pairs some good advice. After all, I’ve had a lot of life experience, I’m opening-minded, I have relevant professional experience, and — let’s face it– I usually know what I’m talking about (grin). Therefore, […]

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Extending Legally, Without an Agency: Ideas?

by cv harquail April 25, 2010
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We would like advice on how to extend with out au pair legally, but by using a lawyer instead of going through our current agency. We want to disconnect from our agency, gently. To put it mildly, our experience with our agency & LCC has been a great disappointment. They are the only agency that […]

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When Your Au Pair Breaks Your Psychological Contract

by cv harquail April 24, 2010
July 19: Balancing act (58/61) by theDQT

[ Note: I think this might be the longest AuPairMom post I’ve ever written. It was a long train ride and I think I got carried away.] Host families and au pairs call it mutual expectations, and management scholars call it the “psychological contract”. The idea behind a psychological contract is that we agree to […]

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Recent Widower / Single Host Dad: How to find the right au pair?

by cv harquail April 21, 2010
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Readers, Here’s a specific question about choosing the right au pair for a family that has lost their mom through tragedy. We had one host dad comment on our earlier post about single parents, and I know that there are at least two other host dad-readers who have lost their wives and who have hired […]

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We interrupt this vacation…

by cv harquail April 19, 2010
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Hi AuPairMom readers — I didn’t think it would be this long between posts — we’ve gone off for a long-awaited family vacation and gotten sidetracked by volcano-related drama. Let it suffice to say that, since we leave for home from Rome, at the end of the week, we expect to slip underneath the ash […]

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Au Pairs and the Single Host Parent

by cv harquail April 18, 2010
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We haven’t talked much about the specific challenges of host parent – au pair relationships when there is only one parent, a single parent, involved. There are some challenges that are specific to the gender & orientation balance, of, say, a female au pair and a single host dad, or a male au pair and […]

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Au Pair Advice: New App to Manage Texting While Driving

by cv harquail April 14, 2010

Local mom and blogger Kristen Kemp wrote a post so important that I’m borrowing heavily from it to share with you all. It’s all about: Parental Control Feature to Stop Texting While Driving If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that most host parents are preeetttyyy concerned about safe driving. Talking […]

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Deciding whether to extend: The Au Pair’s Point of View

by cv harquail April 11, 2010
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When we have an au pair we really like, and even sometimes a so-so au pair, we start to think: Hey, maybe we should extend with this au pair… another 6, 9, or 12 months with the comfort of knowing what we’ve got, taking advantage our mutual investment in the relationship, keeping things stable for […]

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Help Your Au Pair Evaluate Potential Playdates

by cv harquail April 8, 2010
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I firmly believe that working on your au pair relationship makes you a better parent, directly and indirectly. Any time you have to stop and reflect on your parenting principles and your priorities for your kid(s), you have the opportunity to become more mindful about what you’re up to with your family. Here’s one of […]

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Au Pair Asks: When Host Kids Are Mean

by cv harquail April 6, 2010
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Hi Readers, we interrupt our regularly scheduled plan for an emergency request for advice that popped up in the comments of the previous post. Here’s the issue, from VA AuPairMaidNanny: Some of you dedicated readers & Host Parents will remember that I posted a few weeks ago about my experience so far. Many of you […]

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