summer au pair

[KathG]

Hi
Wondering if anyone has had a summer holiday au pair, preferably French to help with the dds French learning. Having read some of the horror stories on here am a bit nervous!
Thanks...

We are having a summer au pair this year. She's coming for two months, starting at the end of May. I am a mixture of excited and nervous.
I have read some horror stories, but also some really good accounts of how having an au pair has worked really well. One poster on here stays with me because she said something like, 'it changed our lives'! I am hanging onto that.
We are a little different in that I am looking for someone to relieve the family chaos (I don't have paid work, but am standing in the local election, chair of governorsm and we have three small children, and H is a city solicitor) rather than to improve languages.
So I am marking my place hoping someone else will come along - preferably with a good experience of a summer au pair! I did see one poster say the problem with a summer au pair was that you put a lot of effort into getting them to a point where they were useful, then they left. Which I can see. But obviously that's less relevant if what you're looking for is language practice...

We have had a French male summer au pair who was amazing at playing outdoors with ds. He came camping with us and was happy to muck in with everything and jumped up happily to carry the dirty dishes to be washed with a grin each day.
I think you need to be very clear when you advertise that you expect some French language to be spoken for your dds. In my experience one of the main motivators for summer au pairs seems to be to learn and speak as much English as possible.

thanks both - A French exchange would be possible but I'll be at work so would need childcare as well...