au pair advice

Eating On Duty: Managing Au Pair Meals

by cv harquail February 3, 2015
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Au Pairs often need to make meals for themselves (as well as for host children) while they are on duty.   We can’t (and shouldn’t) expect any caregiver to go for hours and hours without a proper meal. But when an au pair is ‘on duty’ with a primary responsibility for children, an au pair […]

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Beware the Homesick Au Pair: Screen it out, or wait it out?

by cv harquail October 28, 2014
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Homesickness is completely predictable Homesickness is something that every au pair should anticipate, and that every au pair should make a commitment to work through. If you’re signing up to spend a year in another country, in another family, then you are committing to working through any homesickness that occurs between month 1 and month […]

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3 Features of Au Pairing: Which One Challenges You?

by cv harquail September 1, 2014
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What are the real, important differences between Au Pairs and other kinds of childcare providers, like nannies, babysitters, or childcare centers? What really influences the challenges that host parents and au pairs face when it comes to making this ‘the best year ever’? It used to be that when people asked me how having an […]

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How to Decline an Au Pair Match — Politely

by cv harquail August 26, 2014
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No one wants to be rejected — not au pairs and not host parents.   But reject each other we must, since we know that even a perfectly lovely candidate (in this case, either a host parent or a potential au pair) may just not feel like the right fit. But how can we let the […]

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When Your New and Old Au Pairs Get Jealous of Each Other

by cv harquail July 6, 2014
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How hard is it to see the incoming au pair making connections with the kids, settling into the AuPair room, learning to drive in the USA, and talking about all she’s going to do in her year of adventure? If you’re the host mom, it’s not hard at all– you *want* to see this. But if […]

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Micro-Affirmations: Tiny, Powerful Ways to Motivate & Thank Your Au Pair

by cv harquail June 10, 2014
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For work completely unrelated to AuPairMom, I’ve been researching the concept of “micro-affirmations”, which are the opposite of “micro-aggressions”.  These are small, almost imperceptible behaviors towards one another than can either affirm or threaten another person.  In organizations, they are the behavioral building blocks of an inclusive welcoming culture, or a dominating, oppressive one. Often […]

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Au Pair Asks: My Host Family Fights. Is it okay to rematch?

by cv harquail May 8, 2014

Personally, I can’t imagine living in a family where the members actively fight with one another. It’s one thing to have sibling bickering, or to have the parents yell at each other (very) occasionally when something goes wrong. But to live in a household where people are actively hostile? That would depress me no end. […]

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Create A Bucket List for Au Pair Adventures

by cv harquail March 24, 2014
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If you could create a ‘bucket’ list for any Au Pair coming to the USA, to help him or her make sure to take FULL advantage of the Au Pair adventure, what would you recommend? Writes TexasHM: This morning I had a random idea – what if I created for my AP a list like this […]

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Open Thread: March 22

by cv harquail March 22, 2014
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Welcome to our Saturday Open Thread!   Open threads are for comments on any subject at all, including past posts, things we haven’t posted on, what you’ve been thinking or doing, etc. as long as it follows our basic comments policy. This thread will be open for a full weekend, from today until the evening of […]

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Blended Family Challenge: Half-Time Custody but Full Time Au Pair?

by cv harquail March 20, 2014
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My partner and I have three daughters between us and are looking into the AuPair Educare program. All three of are girls are in school full time and we would essentially only need before and after care. The question is: We have our daughters every other week. We attempt to have all three of them […]

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