third au pair and feeling lost....tell me your success stories

Bonsoir - its a good point, my DC's always interview the au pair and any decision must be unanimous - or we start again. The interview is a good test - if they can hold a 6 year old in conversation over the phone (and not always in their own language) they are probably going to engage with them once they arrive.

Another thought - the French educational system (and much of traditional French upbringing) actually punishes initiative rather hard. The British think of initiative as a virtue, not a vice.

Maybe with older children you should let them have some input into deciding which au pair to choose? My DSSs' au pair recently resigned, which was a blessing as they hated her with a vengeance. To be fair to them, they had said from the outset that she, of the three candidates their mother proposed to them, was the one they liked the least. So it was hardly surprising when the au pair and the boys failed to bond!

lovesunny, , I had an aupair like yours, competent (just about) in the role but just could not interact properly with the children or me.

It was bearable, because she was reliable and did her duties, but created an atomsphere in the house. For example, she started out eating dinner with us and then progressed to gulping it down and then to eating in her room. She never spoke to us. She did not play with dd, then 5, and was quite dull in her interactions. My children eventually gave up trying to engage her.

It's a hard call, this one.

Apologies DadInstead. I only speak from my own experience.

I checked up with 2 male referees for 2 separate aupairs. One referee was glowing, the aupair was a dud. He only skirted around the main issue - which she prefers to be told if something is wrong (I thought fair enough, I am not a seether), but neglected to mention that even if you tell her repeatedly she does not register. The other one did not mention the lack of personality and social skills, which is difficult if you have that person under your roof and in your pockets.

I suppose they were being gracious. Which is great, but no good to me.

I managed to have much more robust conversations with the most recent (women) referees, one of whom resulted in my turning down the prospective aupair. The other gave me my current all-fave aupair.

I am willing to accept it is a coincidence ...

Thanks blue shoes

metrobaby, agree about the lottery thing. But with each passing aupair (5 now, including the last one an utter dud), I am refining my technique.

I believe in biting the bullet and getting rid if not working. You will know within the first week, if not the first couple of days how it will pan out. It usually does not get better.

The best thing is to get aupairs with past aupair experience and who have an English speaking reference you can check up on. Even then, it is not fullproof. I find women references more forthright and spot on than male references. It is easier to pull the wool over a man's eyes IMO.

lovesunnydays - in deciding what to do, how long is your AP going to be with you for? Have you asked your dc what they think of him? If it's a long term arrangement, and/or if your dc are unimpressed, then it may be worth considering your options.

I think it is really difficult to know what to do with an AP who basically does their duties and is considerate, but essientially is not a good personality fit for the family. Of course you could re-hire someone else, but you also run the risk of not necessarily getting someone better. Someone once said on this board that hiring Au-Pairs is a lottery. In my limited experience I am inclined to agree.

I've had 2 au-pairs. The first was fantastic and her sunny disposition and manner with the children made me overlook any of her shortfalls. However, my current au-pair is similar to yours - ie dull and no initiative, and I find that she irritates me me far more as I feel that she is a lot harder work.

lovesunnydays, there will always be an opinion like bluegreen's on these threads. It is par for the course. Ignore. I use aupairs. I understand.

I'd get rid. He's no good.

Whether an aupair works out is very much dependent on the aupair's personality and the fit with the family. Some aupairs have personalities which make them much more adaptable than others.

Being positive, outgoing, interested in people, ideas etc, willingness to learn and improve, can-do attitude.

I have had a fabulous German aupair who most certainly did not speak in monosyllables. We still keep in touch and recently met up with her when she was on holiday in London.

I have not had much luck with Scandinavians, both of which left early. Again, personality.

Lovesunny, I have much sympathy for your aupair who has already paid up for his course. Although the age of your children are not easy for forming bonds with as they are very independent by now, I feel for you when you say he is dull and does not make an effort with them.

I recently had to let my last aupair go - the difference between her and the current (fantastic) one is so stark makes me wonder why I ever contemplated putting up with the last one in the first place. Can he find another family in the area. I think it is easier for him and you if he goes sooner rather than later - you can of course give him as much time as he needs.

Where does finding someone dull equate to the OP expecting to 'own them' and 'use them as they please'?

Many many AP's seem to have absolutely no affinity with children at all, and I suspect look for AP jobs primarily to find a way to leave home. We had an AP who I introduced to the riding club, the young farmers club, the college, the salsa club, the swimming club, the gym and to 6 people of her own age. And she refused to leave the house to do any of it more than once (all of it was paid for). When I suggested she take DS for a walk in the orchard one summer's day she couldn't understand why. She spoke perfect English but to her mind it was pointless going for a 'walk', you only walked to go 'somewhere'. In her spare time she would sit in the front room watching re-runs of 'Friends' and when I asked what she used to do in her home country she replied that she did much of the same, but hadn't been happy at home because her mum was forever telling her to go out and do something. Then she told us she didn't like little boys, only little girls and the fact we had one of each was why she didn't like spending time with them. She eventually went home and got a job in Mcdonalds. Now, it was her perogative to be dull as dishwater, but when the job description says clearly (as it does in my own adverts) 'be of a cheerful disposition and love kids' I consider myself and others fully entitled to whinge when they turn out to be anything but.

I bet he thinks the same for you and your family. Dull! Why dont you make things interestig for him rather then expect him to sell his soul to you. ITs an agreement, he is doing what he suppost to do(clean, fect, babysit, etc). You can not ask someone to bond with your kids (it should come natutally) especialy, if they(your kids) can entertain themselves.

This really annoys me. Families hire an Aupair and expect to own them and use them as they please. Feel sorry for them really.

I have had the same probs. It's now got to the point where I can;s stand to have another useless lazy au pair in the house.

I actually interviewed one. In our email exchanges i told her all about what had gone wrong with previous aupairs, their lack of enthusiasm ideas etc. Then when she cam here for an interview i stressed the type of person we needed.I.E very enthusiastic and cheerful. She told me how much she loved kids ( yawn yawn) how much they liked her. Then i watched to see how she interacted with mine. It was pretty useless. So she went away and I told her she wasn't what we were looking for and she was SURPRISED.
I told her that next time she went for an interview where it was very clearly stated was was required for the job that she actually demonstrated those qualities.

Some au pairs are gems. Most are crap IME.

I had one who complained she didn't know what to eat in the house despite me repeatedly asking her what she wanted me to get for her. She said she didn't eat. I watched her bum grow in size to the extent that she couldn't move well. Christ knows what she thought, she was obviously stuffing her face with something!!

We've had some great au pairs over the years - all seem to have been characterised by a real willingness to help out and an ability to sort things out for themselves. The girls who didn't really fit in so well were those who just didn't seem to have much initiative to get on with things for themselves.. I don't mean duties here - I mean wanting to seek out things to do, places to visit and things to do - find the local library, tennis club, aerobics classes, local sports clubs and so on.

For the last four or five years we have been using an agency called 1st Choice where you can see videos of each candidate. It does give you a much better feel to spot someone who has that bit of spark and see those who speak passionately about themselves and what they are looking for. I can only think of one girl in the last 5 years who was not really that 'stimulating' or had much initiative but she was quite a sweet person in reality - just neeed more mothering.. Our others have all been really generous, good natured, very warm and loving types who always seemed to want to help out whenever they could. One girl called Maria looked after the house while we were away on holiday, when we came back she had spring cleaned the house from top to toe, swept up all the garden paths, bagged up all the various piles of garden rubbish, washed down all the garden furniture and rearranged almost every kitchen cupboard and drawer so they were all neat and tidy.. My DH is awful for his man drawers - his face was a picture.! She had even put all the kids trainers through the washing machine in her desire to get on with things.. Lovely girl through and through.

we have just recruited AP number 4 from abacus au pair agency.

I have found that the girls that come through an agency are more serious about au pairing as they have to pay costs to the agency too. This helps weed out the time wasters.

We have had German girls and they have all been very different in their approach. One was very good at doing arty rafty stuff. One was very sporty with the kids and the current one loves to play top trumps and read with them.

Good luck

Lots of success stories here. AP1 - she's 25 now, still drops us the odd email and tries to visit us every summer. DS still remembers her fondly and we have a treasured 'photo book' which she sent us after she left showing DS laughing on every page. AP3 - mad Spanish chap. Spent 8 months with us and I think his English was worse by the time he left than it had been at the start. But everything was a 'no-problemo' and done fairly badly but with a happy smile. The bathroom was always a tip by the time he had finished 'playing' with the kids at bathtime, but they went to bed happy with smiles on their (not always so clean) faces. AP4 is brilliant - cheerful and helpful and clearly adores the kids. Three other mums in the school have told me they would love to have him look after their kids if we ever want to move on, and I am sure some other mums have probably approached him behind my back.

Trick is to be clear about what you really really want and to compromise on everything else. And I am ruthless in sticking to a very small handful of nationalities - countries where mums working is not unusual, or where the national culture is a 'fun' one (so to speak). Sweden and Norway are my top two, then Spain. Have also forayed into French but not found oodles of personality in either of my experiences. Finnish girl was awful and Turkish girl was mad. If they don't fit in temrs of personality I am now ruthless in clearing them out quickly (although I do it in the nicest possible way of course)

just a quick point about not joining the family in the evenings. have you specifically invited him to join you - our lovely German au pair used to assume that we wanted time alone unless we asked her to join us - once we realised we explained that we sometimes closed doors to conserve heat not to drop hints.
Also you can appear dull if you can't express yourself well.
We also play family board games sometimes and include our ap in those so she gets used to being with us.
HTH

You just don't do all the polite "would you like/could you please" stuff in German - it's a much more direct language. I think you need to give him some leeway on that!

How long is his English course? It does seem a bit unfair to me to sack someone just for being dull, especially when they're quite vulnerable and living with you in another country and have paid for a course themselves.

We try and recruit APs (all through APW) who already have quite good English so their motivation is to be in UK and working with kids.

Success stories - current Australian AP spent 4 hours making a Dalek cake on Monday evening for DS1's birthday yesterday (3 months ago she had never seen a dalek) - it did look fantastic.

Hmm. Does sound very much like English communication could be a problem. We British are very peculiar in our 'would you like to...' or 'please...'. Other cultures just tell you what to do and get on with it. German styles of treating children are also very different and from what I've seen they're expected to be independent and amuse themselves fairly early on so what he's doing is probably very acceptable to him. If you think about it prefacing an imperative (because we do actually mean 'get dressed now') with a conditional question is quite advanced English and a cultural expression. Other langauges just cut the nicety off - we would say 'would you like a drink?', the French say 'you want a drink?'. Maybe he needs to watch more English TV to pick up the add-on expressions! When you're talking to him around the house you can gently help him by overemphasising the politeness aspect of communication - hopefully he'll pick it up - and when he does bark orders gently correct it not as a 'please don't bark at the children' but as a language issue - 'in English we say X....you say it. Good, now see if you can remember that' and get the children on board with helping to improve his English. I promise you it will have a knock on effect to his general attitude.

Don't feel bad for being critical but do learn from this experience. I know that each person is different but there are some cultural generalisations that I personally would rather assume hold and be proved wrong than assume that people are very Anglo in their output. It's not a case of going round thinking 'oh she's French so she'll definitly be like this' or 'oh he's Italian so he'll do this or say that', it's more being aware of the culture they're coming from. Different countries have very different ways of child-rearing and there may just be fundamental incompatabilities. I think the British are very involved, expect to play lots with children, very patient and demonstrative compared to a lot of cultures. This isn't saying you should stereotype BTW! It's more having an awareness in the back of your mind that they won't think the way you do automatically.