My child has driven an wonderful au pair to hand in notice- advice/words of encouragement?

[sagalsmith]

My older 5 yo dd- only ever known to be sweet and obedient mostly, to me and thats how the school and almost everyone who knows her thinks of her. After a 4 month stint of having my mum stay round and our old nanny of 4 years having to leave (still comes once/week)- both of whom she is close to, particularly my mum- its one of those special bonds.
Au pair came in around this time- really nice Swedish girl- no complaints from us but my older dd didn't like her from day one. Younger 4yo dd is good with her. She's been rude, disobedient etc, I've been very careful about dishing out punishments- mostly time outs, telling off- not too much to the point of making her resent the new au pair even more, but enough (or so I thought) to know that we're serious. At the same time- lots and lots of tlc and love as I know she's missing her grandma and doesn't know how to show it.
I know, and the au pair knows that circumstances have contributed to this being an unhappy situation. I'm just quite upset and not sure how someone else would fit in if she keeps behaving like this. Any thoughts?

How long have you had au pair? I know it's no consolation but my son has been the same. In our situation I backed the au pair up 100%. I think if you have future au pair try to find someone who may be a trained teacher or had experience with kids. I give my au pair pep talks, remind her it's not personal. I've implemented tick chart and trying to make time to give him more love and attention. I've never been so embarrassed in my life so I can definitely relate to your dilemma.

When my DD at 5 started this with our new AP I went for the draconian approach. There were big penalties for being rude, disrespectful and disobedient to AP. These included not being able to attend activities etc. I had a firm conversation with DD right of the start explaining exactly what was unacceptable and that it was a zero tolerance policy.
This knocked it on the head in about 2 weeks and DD is now nearly 10 and has never tried this behaviour with anyone else. She grew to love the AP who she still has contact with now.

Thanks for that. I'm sadly on the look out for another au pair now- as you said- hugely embarrassed by my dd's behaviour but its so out of character, I'm not sure how to handle it.
Having had some time to reflect, au pair is not a very happy person and an extreme introvert. Only been here 2 months but haven't really bothered to see the sights etc so maybe dd is catching onto something. We were just so glad we got someone so disciplined (way better than us) but there was this sense of joylessness.
Will be looking for someone much older this time- that was good advice on ex-teachers etc. Old ad literally asked for a happy, playful person. Will ask for more this time.

Perhaps checking out Granny au pair I haven't used them yet, but have heard good things.

I can understand if your au pair was not that much fun. My au pair is great but sometimes she was so robotic. So I spelled it out for her. Don't just ask him to do things in a bossy way, make it fun. Tickle him, compete with him to get him changed quickly. Also don't bark orders at him, say please, Thankyou , excuse me to him.

Maybe look for someone who has also worked in kids camps over holidays. Someone who likes creative activities, so even when little one wants to be a brat, they can't help themselves but join in. My son was also out of character, so I was besides myself. Touch wood it's subsided for the last week. Maybe with yours it was blessing in disguise if she wasn't much fun. Good luck hope it goes smoothly for you.