Choosing an Au Pair

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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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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How to Assess an Au Pair Candidate’s Driving Experience

by cv harquail March 23, 2010
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Our second au pair had a lot of driving experience back in her Eastern European country. She’d been driving for 3 years, almost every day. Sounded great. This, along with her other great qualities, lead us to match with her. Zoom ahead three months, as we settle her into the Toyota to go out for […]

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Choosing an Au Pair for Teens

by cv harquail November 3, 2009
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If you’re choosing an au pair for teens, what are the qualities you’d look for? I’m assuming that teens have different childcare needs, and we’ve thought about these in our earlier post… so how do we find au pair candidates who can do all this? I have no idea. My guess is that you’d want […]

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Choosing an Au Pair: Language as a Selection Criterion (Poll)

by cv harquail November 2, 2009
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What do you think of the idea of choosing an au pair based on her native language? Note: Choosing on language is not the same as choosing an au pair based on culture. Just think of the range of cultures where French is spoken!  Cameroon, Haiti, Montreal and Tuscany are  very different  cultures. Is there […]

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Her Language or Yours? Balancing different goals

by cv harquail November 1, 2009
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One of the oft-cited opportunities of au pair childcare is the idea that your children can learn another language from your au pair. Sometimes people choose au pairs to help them reinforce a second language that is already spoken in the household (perhaps, by one of the parents or by a child adopted from another […]

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Matching: What should a potential au pair tell you about herself?

by cv harquail October 23, 2009
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Coordinating with the previous posts about questions an Au Pair should ask a potential host family, what would you like an au pair to tell you about herself? There are perhaps 4,387 categories of things that an au pair could tell you about, so challenge yourself to offer maybe the top 2 or 3… This […]

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3 Questions an Au Pair should ask YOU to make a good match

by cv harquail October 22, 2009
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If Skype didn’t exist, if email hadn’t been invented, and if we could only communicate with potential au pairs using short, really expensive long distance phone calls (anyone remember those days?), we wouldn’t have the luxury of long conversations to help us assess a good match. And since we do have that luxury– and so […]

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Choosing an Au Pair: How to Avoid a Princess

by cv harquail September 26, 2009
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If only it were as easy as sticking a green vegetable underneath her mattress and waiting to see if she gets a good night’s sleep… We all want to avoid “the princess” – the au pair candidate who thinks the job is all about visiting the States, living in an American home, and having an […]

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Male Au Pairs: When would you hire one? (Poll)

by cv harquail September 22, 2009
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Have you ever thought about hiring a male au pair? I haven’t considered it, since I have two girls and I’m looking for positive young women as role models…. but one of my girlfriends has a male au pair for their two sons, and she’s found that a male au pair has been just as […]

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