This may be a rather long post, please stick with it - I need advice!
K has been with us since Easter. She is 22, an only child, German with excellent English. She is due to be with us for 12 months. She doesn't go to college as she is doing a psychology course from her home university by distance learning. Not sure it's relevant but she describes herself as a goth (she wears all black clothing and a fairly heavy make-up when she goes out). This doesn't interfere with her duties so I don't care! The children love her. She isn't very talkative, but she is pleasant with a good sense of humour.
Our agreement, spelled out clearly during Skype interviews, and by email and once she arrived (both verbally and in writing) is that she has certain housework and laundry duties plus responsibility for DD 10 and DS 8 after school and about 2 nights babysitting each week. We pay her £80 - which is more than the 2 other au pairs in our village even though the duties a comparable. She is off duty most weekends - just a few Saturday nights sitting agreed way in advance. She uses a car to drive the children and has use of it most of her off duty time if she wants it.
My real problem is that she has no initiative. She is incapable of doing ANYTHING unless I spell it out to her that morning. I have done lists of daily, twice weekly and weekly tasks plus a breakdown of jobs to do each weekday but she just doesn't get it. She is chronically untidy - her clothes (clean and dirty) are kept on the floor of her room and every surface is covered with cosmetics, papers, crisp packets etc.
I was annoyed last week because, among other things, she didn't do any laundry between Monday and Friday leading to a huge backlog. She is expected to sort the laundry twice a week - on Monday and Thursday. There is now a day's worth of solid ironing and we are all running out of clothes
I spoke to her yesterday and said very clearly that she needs to be more proactive and, whilst I am happy to help her to plan, she needs to do the things on her lists without being told. She said she understood and I gave her the list again.
Today she has done less than half the things on her list. I'm not talking big things - wipe round loo and basin in bathroom, put away some clothes on DD's chair. She also hasn't done the major job of the day which is to dust and Hoover in the children's rooms. Takes me 45 minutes if I do it thoroughly.
K doesn't really go out. She has refused to meet the other au pairs in the village or use the web sites to meet others. Last week, she went to London on bank holiday Monday. That was the only time in 10 days she left the house except to fetch the children from school or to go out with us as a family.
K is our 6th au pair. All the previous ones have stayed for 6 months which was the time agreed at the outset. We are in touch with 4 of the previous 5 and 3 of them came to visit last year and are planning return trips. I say this as background to show that I can't be all bad!
What do I do? I can cope with her not being perfect - the others weren't and neither am I. But this is driving me mad. I work from home quite a bit and that makes it worse. We said at the interview stage that we were looking for another adult to come and live with our family, join in with many of our activities and share the responsibilities. I feel like I have a teenage daughter who can be trusted to keep the children safe and happy but nothing more.
Help!