What do you wish you had asked your au pair before?

[Cakeandeatingit]

I think I have found The One. (Yes, that's what you all felt, right?)
But what do you wish you had asked your new au pair before they started?
Does anyone have an example of ground rules and/or contract setting out duties/expectations for the au pair that they wouldn't mind sharing?
Any red flags that crop up during your Skype session/s that you wished you had followed up?
I would be grateful for any lessons you would like to recount.

I think it’s all about gut feeling. We had two au pairs. With the first one we just clicked and we had lots to talk about, lots of shared interests. The second au pair was nice and sweet but I had a weird feeling about her at interview stage and I just couldn’t shake it off. I went for her because at the time there weren’t many people available and we were under time pressure, but it was a mistake because we just didn’t get on with her.
If you decide to share your home with someone the chemistry must be right.

I echo what puff said. The au pair relationship is so personal, I have found with someone we get on with and feel loads of affection for ( nearly all our au pairs actually) there is loads of flexibility and give and take. The only au pair where it hasn’t worked out was one where I, like puff, felt a bit funny after Skyping, but tried to shake the feeling off because of lack of applicants. Mistake! Turns out, that feeling of ‘the one’ is what I should have been looking for.

We had au pairs back in pre internet days when agencies matched families with potential APs.
You never "met" them beforehand, irl on via t"internet.
All 8 were fab - but you need to realise that no one is ever perfect, not even au pairs. Like everyone else they all have different strengths and weaknesses.

We loved having au pairs. We are still in touch with 4 of the 8 and have been to their weddings, childrens' christenings etc.

Wow thanks everyone. I am totally a gut instinct person - too much so sometimes and assumed everyone was way more methodical than me.I was expecting a long list of red flags to look for, some national characteristics (everyone seems to love German au pairs), any tips on only choosing eldest siblings or those who worked in childcare etc.
While I really like this au pair, it seems the host family that she was due to go back to (she has returned to her home country for a couple of weeks as they went on a family holiday and did not need her) have been a bit off with her. The dad is lovely but the mother has apparently been quite hostile (she said this all very diplomatically). But they are attempting a charm offensive to lure her back (she has left a suitcase there and had said she could help them for one extra week if they have no one). I am terrified she will not come to us out of FOG (fear, obligation, guilt). Or maybe She's Just Not That Into Us.

That scenario doesn't sound great tbh. There is a good chance there is another side to the story. In fact this sounds like a bit like a story I have heard on a host parents FB group. Don't get me wrong - there are mad families out there but if you can find someone without a back story like that I'd try to.

Interesting it seemed to work so well in the pre/internet days!

I generally chose on gut feeling - worked well 5 out of 6 times.

I would ask - have you caught bus/train on your own in home country? How would you go about doing that in the UK? (Was v surprised by one au-pair who arrived who had never been on public transport, I had never considered that a 20+ year old uni grad might be like that! Was due to being brought up rurally with driving license since age 16)

I'd also ask /probe about motivation & academic ability to learn english. We have had au-pairs arrive with different levels of English. The worst was one who was nowhere near as good as he thought he was, but also didn't really want to learn more / wasn't that bright so that he learnt quickly.

I don't think that sounds great either. Leaving her previous host family without any notice doesn't really bode well for her being reliable for you.

We've hosted a re-matched au pair and she was very upfront with her previous family and gave plenty of notice before we interviewed her (she was out in the sticks and they had said that she would have use of the car and they then changed their minds when she arrived.)

As PP have said its really important to get someone you gel with. I check lots of things that are important to me:
Lived away from home before
Want to be more independent from us
Want to explore and possibly work/study in free time.
We need a safe confident driver - so I ask about that too.
I also check that they like playing with children!
Don't have a boyfriend (or if they do they are used to being separated)
I've also found personally that faddy diets annoy me.

We've had au pairs for nine years - only one absolute dud and one other who was problematic but for reasons I can sympathise with.

Most of them have some quirks but in our experience if you treat them well and have reasonable expectations (i.e. don't tell them it's a 20 hr a week after school only role and then disclose it's 40 with a puppy to house train to boot, after they arrive) it tends to go fine.

Things that didn't work for us:

1. Focusing on a 'niche' skill (in our case music) as opposed to are they warm and friendly generally, do they like children, share your values etc. We've canned the niche skill and gotten a MUCH better set up this year.

2. Relying too much on instinct, in fact, and not taking up references. You may or may not learn something interesting but it does reinforce the fact that you won't take any old person on. I was always rigorous about this but the two that didn't work out well we didn't do this with.

3. Older doesn't work for us. By that I mean, they've had their own flat and earned proper money. The transition back to a big sister role, living in someone else's home, with pocket money didn't work for one of our au pairs. I also don't recommend encouraging outside work - with this same au pair, that took over.

4. Basic English skills. Again, with our dud I relaxed this. Intermediate English as a minimum - without it, it's very hard to get to know them and they can hide in their rooms/avoid the family/seek out friends from their home country too quickly. We reached the situation where the relationship felt unrecoverable because we'd been living as strangers for too long.

5. When they arrive focus on the core, core things you need to keep the show on the road and sane and make sure these are done properly. Long lists of things you'd like the au pair to do never work. Four to six max things IME. Expect them to take longer than you would do it as well.

6. Ask about their families. How the celebrate holidays, what they enjoy in their spare time. It's worked out best for us when we have gotten to know their families over time. With the two au pairs that I mention above, one was estranged from her parents and I think her experience sadly influenced her attitude towards the children. The mother of the other one had never held down a job. Our lifestyle was baffling to her on all levels. I realised after I hired them I'd sort of forgotten to ask about this....

If they can't/won't listen and it's not working, don't be afraid to end it. Some people don't do written contracts but I would personally put all of your expectations in writing before they arrive and also be clear about what could cause you to end it and then honour that.

Hmmmmm - I have to say that situation with her current host family rings alarm bells for me. Why is she leaving them exactly? Upping sticks and heading off is not great. Having gushed earlier about how it's all about instinct, if I was taking someone in who'd already au paired, I'd want to know lots of info about why they left their previous family (and would ideally speak to them on the phone) and why they wanted to try again.
And just to contradict myself further! I do tend to look for au pairs who've lived away from home before, and who show some evidence of a bit of independence. A good answer to 'what else will you do whilst you are here?' is a good sign too! No correct answer to this - just shows someone who's thought about free time and what they might want to do with it.

I’ve just had to give my current au pair notice, having had one very successful au pair before and one that worked fine.

Like others I think it was that this time I felt a bit panicked/rushed as there weren’t that many au pairs out there when I was looking. So I went back to someone I’d initally discounted. As my kids were younger ( youngest is 4) I’d previously always looked for some childcare experience - current au pair had only the usual ‘babysitting’. Interestingly, looming at others posts, she was also older and had had a ‘proper’ job for a couple of years.

Wow thanks for the replies! Au pair wants to leave due to mother of family being rude and unwelcoming. She seems very sweet and has an instant warmth and great people skills. She is very keen to do English classes despite her English being almost faultless as she wants to further her career during her gap year (she’s just graduated). She wanted references for us! I read too many stories of people treating their au pairs as slaves or being hostile to them. Some people just seem to have a need to dominate or treat people like servants to feel superior it seems!

Is this your first AP, OP?

At home we call it ‘the thunderbolt’ (very Four Weddings & a Funeral). With our first two it was literally an instant connection with the profile as well as on Skype. We have always asked for 21+ and both of them had a college education and ambitions. The au pair role was to get their already great English up to excellent standard and to give them time to think and experience different things and cities before settling down to pursue a career. They got us and we got them. The children adored them and I still miss their company.

No. 3 just wasn’t right. We rushed our decision and agreed on the best of an okay shortlist. There was no thunderbolt but we thought that with upcoming brexit we couldn’t be choosy. Wrong. I knew as soon as I picked her up from the airport that this was not the right au pair for us. She was very quiet, had no conversation or passion, was not engaging, no plans of exploring London or making friends and just didn’t get a busy working family. Her time keeping was terrible and at the end of a long working day I would get home and the children were still not in the shower or ready to wind down for a story. I had to put in an hours work getting the kids ready and clearing up teatime every evening. I was about to have the conversation when she said she had to return home as her family has illnesses. She lasted barely 3mths.

On the back of this we are more cautious now. We make sure they have siblings and working parents with similar ethos to us ( ie they know what it is like for a tired mum to come back from work and not create more work for her); we ask about passion and ambitions, plans for the next couple of years and how they plan to make friends and if the have interests.

We collect ap no. This weekend so time will tell if we have another hit or miss. She sounded lovely on profile and Skype so fingers crossed

So no. 4

Cornwall how are you getting on? Thanks for all your replies. Vienna it is our first proper au pair as we had one last spring we took in for six weeks to fill a gap between her travel plans. This current one is amazing. Warm, patient, full of initiative. She reminds us of our incredible former nanny. The thing they both have in common is that they grew up in families where no one fought and they never argued with their siblings. I find this concept extraordinary but it does exist out there. I am grateful to those who’ve brought their good influences to our much more fractious family.

Thank you for asking. She had to change plans so travelling this weekend instead (fingers crossed!).

Your au pair sounds great