Au pair with no initiative

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We have an au pair staying with us for the summer. Our main reason for needing one is that we have 3 DCs, and the summer hols are completely overwhelming with them all having different interests etc, and we could just do with an extra pair of hands.

So she arrived last month with a view to settling in before the holidays. We expect virtually nothing in housework, just literally interacting with the kids. So if I'm cooking dinner or need to make a phone call, or need to take one of them to an appointment then she can distract them, play with them etc.

I've made all of this clear and am writing a timetable/list of what is happening each week and her role in that. However, the issue is that she seems to have zero initiative in interacting with them and as a result they really have not taken to her. She literally sits there & ignores them. If I say "au pair, please can you do the kids' teeth", she will make a half-hearted attempt; they won't want her to do it, and she will then give up and go back to texting on her phone!

I have tried giving specific activities which worked slightly better. And tried leaving the house so she HAS to be the responsible adult and they can't come running to me, but actually I need her to be able to entertain them when I'm there too. They really are easily entertained, and easily won over, all it would take is a bit of persistence.

I'm not really sure where to go with this as it's exhausting and it's actually more work having her here and having to manage her to manage the kids and then have the kids upset because they don't want to do anything with her. I actually get the impression she doesn't like the kids that much.

The thing is despite all this she is actually a really sweet girl and seems like a nice person, just doesn't apparently like children! She is only staying til the end of the summer so it isn't that long to just stick it out but I was kind of hoping for a bit more than this. Anyone else had this & any advice?

Ooh that’s tricky. How old is she? Our new au pair is young and similarly lacks initiative but I wasn’t expecting her to be like our nanny so wasn’t expecting too much initiative! Is your au pair warm, pleasant and biddable? If so, clear and exact instructions for activities seems to work for ours. And I’ve deliberately given her small chunks of one on one time with the youngest (age 5) as he is difficult and it would be a lot to expect her to manage all 3 at once - however, mine is just starting for the year and this is investment for the next year - probably too much hassle just for the summer! Or if she’s really struggling with the kids, give her more household chores so that you are freed up for the kids - but discuss the change with her first.

Sorry just seen you said specific activities work better - can you spend an evening writing down 10 activities in detail and then get her to pick one to do with kids each time you need them occupied.

Thanks for your reply, much appreciated.

She's 20, so quite young I guess. She's very warm & pleasant with me, with the children not so much. If I give her an activity when I'm there, she'll ask the children if they want to do it, they'll say no, then she'll go back to texting on her phone and I have them hounding me.

Good idea about giving her one of them at a time, I've done this a couple of times, e.g. "take eldest one to mcdonalds" and she is happy to do it. Also a good idea about giving household chores instead of being with the kids, I might try that one on next week's schedule. I've already said actually not to bother with 'helping out' in the mornings as it is more work having her there than just getting on with it!

I hope yours gets better too, I'm not sure we'll do the au pair thing again, I'll possibly put it down to a failed experiment, it seems an awful lot of work for what is ultimately a lottery really.

None of my au pairs have had any real imitative to be honest. I generally find that they do housework well but wouldn't know how to entertain a 10 yr old if they had to under pain of death. I would insist she had no phone on her at specific times in the house because that will always be more interesting than your kids (no offence). She is supposed to be learning English and being part of the family, not texting her mates all summer. It is time consuming having a new au pair but generally is worth it if they are there for a while. Good luck OP.

thanks surlycurly. Yes I do need to clamp down on the phone. The thing is I wouldn't even mind her having a sneaky 30 second peak every now & then if she was making an effort the rest of the time, but she is literally on it constantly when the kids are about, and then springs into life the second they're gone? I would actually worry she was depressed if she didn't suddenly seem full of the joys of spring as soon as they're off at school.

I think I possibly over-estimated the level of help it would be having an au pair. I think I was expecting someone of the standard of our amazing babysitters we have had, who have actually been even younger than her! And the frustrating thing is that we don't even expect that much off her. I'm asking for way less than the standard 25 hours and am letting her have the time when they're at school as her own time & not expecting her to do chores etc. But as bythebeach suggested it's a good idea to ramp up the housework if she's not going to make an effort with the kids!

I think if she was staying longer I would have to reconsider keeping her on, but with only 5-6 weeks to go it barely seems worth it. As DH & I have said, we just need to treat the situation as its bare minimum worth that at least we have another adult in the house & should try and go out a few times once the kids are in bed.

We state that "phone use needs to be kept to an absolute minimum when you're with the children".

I think I've posted this before, but I didn't think to check with our first au pair that she actually liked playing with children (she didn't!), she was good at housework and cooking though.

You do need to talk to her though, ask her what she's going to do with the children that particular day. Tell her you need her to engage more with them.

I think that you need to play to people’s strengths. Give her a clear list of housework to do, the maybe a specific game or activity to do with the children.

I would find the ‘interact’ duty a bit non-specific too, so perhaps it isn’t a surprise that she is floundering.

Thanks, I take that on board that I'm perhaps not being specific enough. I've been giving activities like playing with playdough & giving her all the stuff and doing arts & crafts and providing all the bits, but it's difficult to know how to instruct her to actually cultivate the initiative to make them want to do it with her. Being out the house seems to be the only way, but then that's kind of not why we took her on.

We're going to have a chat with her about phone usage later.

Also going to give her a list of specific non-child tasks.

Thanks for all the input.

We have had six au pairs and they have all had minimal amounts of initiative! A couple were good at entertaining the little one but mostly they'd sit on their phones and expect them to do everything. Ultimately it got too much for me and we've now gone down an after school nanny route. The cost is not great in comparison, but it's an actual job so she's more inclined to care. Not much tidier though!
Good luck.

I think I'd explain to her that being on your phone whilst at work is not usually considered acceptable, and that it should be turned off during her working hours.
Hopefully she'd then be focusing on the children more.

Does she have set hours per day? Most Au pairs are not expected to be hands on at all times, but for a predetermined length of time. Maybe try and and work out what this should be and be firm in regards to your expectation. She's not an older sibling so shouldn't be available just whenever you feel, I'd find that hard. Can you get her to take the kids out or go out to the garden with them? Give them all set activities?

Thank you for the further replies. Yes she does have set times we say to be with the children, and it's about a couple of hours per day if that, with nothing else expected of her, so she's very much not on-call. Today she literally did nothing, and she said she didn't see the point as I was there & the kids wanted me not her, aaargh! I did get her to do baking with the children yesterday which seemed to go ok-ish, but I did need to make sure I was out of the house for it.

She's taken the kids to the park, one or two at a time, but they come back after about 20 minutes, I'm guessing because she's not really interacting with them.

It'll get more full-on now the kids are breaking up but I'm going to have to make sure I manage it correctly in terms of giving her one child at a time with a specific activity to do with them, which is kind of exhausting as the reason I needed help in the first place is because the juggling is too much.

Thanks again for the advice.

How old are your DC

Activities list - DC get to choose from 2 or 3 options that Au pair engages with.

Board type game
Painting
Baking
Scooter/bike ride
Arts/crafts
Playground

And so on...

No téléphone during working hours is the rule you need. Send her off with one or two of them for the day to get used to it and her to them.

It's ok to be a bit tougher about the whole thing. So she can check her phone once an hour. Give her times so "go to the park for 2 hours, tell me what you can do to keep them occupied".

What nationality is she? Might give us a clue as to cultural issues.

My very first au pair was like this. No amount of providing lists to say "do this, do that, go there etc" worked. Having chats about engagement levels didn't work either.

Some people are inherently not interested and no amount of coaching will get it to work.

Either call it a day or if it's for the summer only put up with it (as I did).

If she is at home, tell her to leave her phone in her bedroom. If she's meant to be working she should not be allowed on her phone!

Thanks all, it's her day off today but yes tomorrow the phone needs to stay away.

The thing is I don't mind providing her with a list of activities or even choosing an activity for her, but when she doesn't engage even within that activity, it's not really possible to say "pick up playdough"; "roll playdough"' "talk to children about playdough" etc etc. Surely that part should be just common sense? or do some people just not think like that?

Re nationality, she's Slovak but has very good English.

I keep veering between calling it a day, but that is just going to be so horrible and awkward and just putting up with it!

Perhaps you an tell her that she needs to pretend she is making a video blog on how to play with play doh or whatever... yep point out the the fecking obvious to her!

Good plan randommess. I thought I'll also write her an appraisal-type thing on the timetable I give her each week. e.g. what went well, what to work on next week etc.