communication challenges

When Your Au Pair Connects With Everyone But You

by cv harquail July 30, 2015
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Not every Au Pair hits it off with every family member. Sometimes there’s a kid or a parent for whom the Au Pair’s personality is a perfect fit. Sometimes the Au Pair is ‘primed’ to listen to one parent over the other because of the Au Pair’s own family history. Sometimes the Au Pair’s home […]

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Au Pairs Should Use Language that Host Kids Can Understand

by cv harquail September 23, 2014
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Many families look for au pairs who can help their children learn a language other than English. The idea is that the au pair can speak to the child in the au pair’s first language, and teach the child the second language through everyday interactions. Conceptually, this makes sense. We do, after all, learn our […]

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Choosing An Au Pair: Reading between the lines of an email reply

by cv harquail April 28, 2014
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People tease me about the number of emoticons, doge gifs, and exclamation points I use in my email, but I refuse to give up on anything that might help me convey the feelings behind my words — and to avoid being misinterpreted. It’s happened to all of us, when we’ve rushed to reply, or we […]

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3 Tips for Cross-Cultural Conversation

by cv harquail September 30, 2012
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When you and your au pair struggle to communicate — even when you both speak English resonably well– it can be hard to know whether the problem is “attitude” or “comprehension”. We see issue a lot in comments about au pairs who are given lists of tasks but don’t do them, or host parents who […]

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