Give Us Your Story or Tip for Au Pairs

Dear Au Pair,

we would really like to hear your story or your tip(s) so that we can share them with other au pairs. Please post below as a comment and to be featured on our au pair blog.
(we reserve the right to edit and will remove all personal details in line with data protection)

Both families and au pairs always enjoy reading testimonials, case studies and stories from recent experiences.

Comments

[Ophélie Chauveau]

Hi,

My name is Phoebe, and it's going to be my 3rd time as an au pair. I've been au pair in USA, in Germany, and in June I'll be in UK.

The best advise I could give to futures au pairs is to ask to speak with the current au pair. If it's not possible, the family may want to hide you something. I didn't speak with the current au pair for USA, and I had the worse family ever. When i asked to speak to the au pair they told me they will give her my email, but i never had any message from her. If I would speak with her I would probably never go with them.

Others advices would be to be open mind, as the family will probably not agree with you about every aspect of life or the way to educate the kids. (sometimes you may think something is inacceptable, and the parents will let the kids doing it, or vice versa)

About the language, you will learn as you go, don't worry about your level, just you need the bases.

Advices for families : You should speak with your au pair very often, not only to know about what the kids did and how the day went. But also to ask your au pair if she found friends, if she feels good, if she has something special to ask or to tell you. What she thinks about your way to educate the kids (not for changing the way you do, but to know how she feels about it)

I think this is really important that the all family eat with the au pair. In USA the family asked me to don't eat with them because "they wanted their privacy". But then one day, the 5 years old boy told me that he wanted me to go back to France because i didn't love him. So I asked him why he was thinking that because that was not true. And he told me : "Because you never want to eat with me at night"

For real, it wasn't my choice, i wanted to eat with them, but they didn't allow me to do so.

Hoping this help.
Take Care
Phoebe