Advice needed on getting the au pair 'relationship' right?

I think my employer will be avoiding people with serious boyfriends after me - I'm leaving to get married - and the previous nanny left because her boyfriend moved to Germany!

Sorry for the inconvenience you AP has caused you, Onions, but it sounds like the best thing in the long run!

We had a French "animatrice" - she was great, although her English was rubbish (but didn't matter much as we all speak French).

Also had one with serious bf in France - she was fine and it caused no problems. Reminds me the animatrice was in lurve big time with a French Legionnaire...until he ditched her teh day before a romantic meet up in Paris. She was a bit emotional for 24 hours, went to Paris, met some friends...and never mentioned him again!

They are all different!

On the boyfriend issue, I try to avoid aupairs who have boyfriends in their hometown. A risk of taking on such an aupair is that she might get love/homesick and end contract early. But if her boyfriend is in UK or not too far away, you probably won't see her for dust on weekends!

BTW, my aupair's room is too small for sleepovers and I specify no male overnight guests (well, except long term boyfriends, but none of mine have had one yet, though little dalliances afaik!) in any case.

So far:

Excellent French one - had worked on summer camps, lived away from home since 18, no siblings, both parents worked, very crafty (as in arts not sneaky), stayed til end of contract.

Superb (but slightly wild) Dutch one, hadn't lived away from home, eldest of three, both parents worked, mum used to run a nursery, stayed til end of contract.

Current very good Canadian, lived away from home, one sibling, mum doesn't work, slight cleaning obsession (that I can put up with ) currently says she wants to extend contract.

Can I agree with whoever it was who said to look for someone with a working mother? I have had:

Excellent German girl (with working mother, no father at home, cheerful, good with the kids, still comes on holidays with us some times).
Poor Danish girl (never lived away from home before, had boyfriend at home, had no younger siblings, mother did not work out of the house). When I write this all down I wonder why we took her on! She left after three months to the sounds of general cheering.

FWIW over the last 5 years I have had:

great Swedish girl
dreadful Turkish girl
so-so French girl
nightmare Finnish girl
very cheerful Spanish guy
fab fab fab Swedish guy

Hi Onions
I know someone who had a stunning Polish au pair who was so kind to her childrena dn I knew a girl from a toddler group who was an ex Slovikian au pair, who seemed very kind- albeit quite strict, so dont rule Eastern Europe out!!

Sorry to hear you are back to the strat again, good luck getting it sorted

Comes late to thread - sorry to hear about AP abandoning you.

I don't have a voluminous handbook, I feel there is something that doesn't fit with my personal style about pointing out why rule 33 is there.

What we do is have a sit down for 10 minutes (or however long it takes) in the evening where we go through good and bad points, this is every night when they first arrive, now (two months in with current one) it is once or twice a week. Also important to give them a chance to feedback on what they found tough or objectionable. This is when I am in employer mode. The rest of the time we tryand make it as much a family situation as possible.

One of the first questions I ask is what is the longest time you have spent away from home. I have found that people that have worked on summer camps do tend to make good au pairs. One I look out for is a French au pair who claims to have an animator's qualification this is not a cartoonist but a poor translation of the French "looking after kids in an informal out of school/play environment" for which there is no easy English word.

My main reason for choosing Western European aupairs is that their English tends to be better. Such voluminous paperwork would not work with someone who is truly here to learn English. If I am at work, I need to be able to give instructions over the phone and for them to understand.

Plus the fact my hours are quite short with consequently less pocket money. I am in fact not an attractive prospect for Eastern European aupairs and tend not to get much interest from them in any case.

Onions, I have only had Western European aupairs and they fall within Jules' description of being warm and good with children (save for the French one who inexplicably did not know how to play with dd) but less thorough on the housework side.

For the induction, I have a written down schedule telling the aupair what she needs to do at what time of the day. I also have detailed house rules (60+ at last count), a lot of which are informational and for her safety/security as much as 'rules' eg what to do when people knock on door or identity theft. I also have a list of how I like each room to be cleaned and assign her a different room to clean every Mon-Fri.

I think this gives the impression that I have thought of everything that would make it work for her and us - no doubt will scare the bejesus out of anyone expecting an easy ride but will be comforting for an aupair who wants to know what the ground rules are.

I have a little gift of toiletries and a handbook of local attractions, language courses, and info on anything she said she wants to do in London, and how to get around and make friends. hth

Onions.. lucky escape. I deliberately don't chose french because of my sisters experience (au pair went a bit loopy and threatened her) and a friends experience (too superior refused to do any housework at all including picking up children's clothes). This is a terrible generalisation but we have found eastern european the hardest working and most efficient but perhaps lacking in warmth for the children and western europeans more friendly, outgoing, better with the children but less efficient at housework etc. Not sure if that helps anyone.

Sorry to hear that, Onions. I do think you had a lucky escape there, from what you described of him.

The thing about French aupairs is that they just have a short hop across the channel so they might be more light footed and perhaps even less committed or thought things through than one who has a longer distance to travel? I get that vibe sometimes, could be wrong of course.

Hope you find a good aupair soon.

jules, i actually do remember myself in my early aupair days i though it was polite to hang aroung and wait for the parents to give me jobs. when we had guests -usually for a sat/sun lunch i used to sit at the table with the adults like a potato after the meal was finished, trying to look i was enjoying myself. i wasnt allowed to do the dishes myself, the kids played by themselves so i just sat there thinking that the polite thing to do. it wasnt until i left the family i realised that at lots of occasions they would have actually prefered to be on their own. couple of times they asked me to leave them alone so i thought its ok any othertime. but then we hardly had guests in the evenings and i worked saturdays and sundays. but with no scheduled times, i i generally spent the weekends with them doing whatever was needed. at those days i didnt realise i could have benefited both sides if we agreed certain times they wanted me aroung and times they didnt. i think they didnt think it was polite do set that. which just shows how important comunicating is. unfortunately you dont realise lots of things when you are a lets say 20 years old thrown into a foreign family for the first time.

not that

Onions, it depends on the individual rather than the nationality. Though it is hard to resist certain cultural stereotypes.

I personally have only been burnt by french aupairs (one cancelled one week before she was due to start and the other was intelligent but was not terribly bothered about doing a good job) and so it will be an exceptional French profile that would make me consider again. My German and Swedish were aupairs were great, though once again, not that is a lot to do with the girl.

Perhaps the best thing is to check up on references thoroughly, particularly on personality aspects. I only shortlist aupairs who can provide English speaking references who are non-relatives, ideally previous aupair families, otherwise summer job references or babysitting families. I speak to them over the phone, email being a distant second preference.