Au Pair Nightmare Child

[girlinCR]

hi guys! unsure if this is the right place to post but looking for some advice.

i’m 20 and currently an au pair in Czech Republic. The house is lovely as are the parents, though they work 24/7 so are quite detached from the children.

the first day was great, the oldest of the boys (8, 4 and 2.5) was an angel and I was so excited to stay here until the end of august.

however, when his younger brothers arrived, it all went a bit hellish. it’s not that i don’t know how children are, i’m the oldest child and know how annoying younger siblings are - but this is more like bullying.

from the moment he properly wakes up, it’s “[4 year old] smells like a baby”, [4 year old] can’t play my games” “i’m going to smack your bottom [4 year old]”. i’m against hitting kids to punish them, so i refuse to do it but the parents do when the kids misbehave, which is fine. they’re their children. but the aggression seems to have fallen onto the shoulders of the 8 y.o.

another example that happened today was we were in the garden, all 3 boys racing on their little bikes. 8 y.o decided to have a competition, which all boys agreed to. however he completely excluded the 4 y.o, pushing his bike over to slow him down and then declaring that the 4 y.o couldn’t play. I’m sort of at my wits end here.

with the parents and with me alone, he’s a completely different little boy, but with the brothers he’s a complete monster. it sounds awful, but i really don’t like him anymore. every communal time (breakfast, dressing, bathtime, playing in the afternoon) is so, so difficult because he’s there. the youngest two are young boys so not the easiest, but i much prefer it when he’s at school.

i suppose what i’m looking for is guidance from a parent. i’ve asked my own but their responses were very generic - distract him etc. i don’t have time alone with the host parents though I can try to ask for some to mention the oldest’s beh. just don’t know what to do in the meantime.

he is literally tormenting them, especially the 4 y.o who is sensitive and cries at every little thing. when he cries, the oldest laughs and continues. he even encourages the younger children to misbehave when he can see i’m in a struggle dealing with it. I just don’t understand how one child can be so radically different in certain situations

Sorry for the (extremely) long post, and thank you for any tips you can give on managing his violent behaviour. xx

Hi @girlinCR

I am a parent who has an au pair who is wonderful. I think in your situation you can try to speak to the parents to address the problem.

It's very difficult to manage them because you're not here for long and the boys are bigger now and more difficult to listen to someone new.

Good luck

What have you tried?

He's acting out the way his parents treat him on his siblings, which is pretty normal in itself. The problem is that his parents hit their kids.

I'd be out of there before you could say "shit parenting".

My two boys had this dynamic, eldest picked on youngest (6 year gap). If youngest had sweets he would take them, if they fought he would hurt him, if there was a toy he would take it off him etc etc.
We just had to consistently and doggedly police them and pre-empt situations arising-it was exhausting. We never smacked eldest but would tell him off and shout at him sometimes, if he hurt the youngest & take away toys.
Youngest eventually got better at sticking up for himself as he grew smarter, and eldest grew out of it at around 11.( Eldest is 18 now & is a really caring older brother & they have a great relationship now- I know this won't help your situation)!
I think they should give you a bit more support, you seem to have been dropped in the deep end a bit.If you stick it out you'll certainly learn a lot about child wrangling and child psychology!

I was an au pair for a lovely family of two boys (Age 8) and a girl (age 5). While there was nothing like you describe - one of the boys was a bit more challenging. What worked in that situation was establishing the 'Star and Cloud Game'. Basically, we sat together (children and I) and we wrote the 'house rules' (no hitting each other, swear words, yelling...) together. Every time someone would break a house rule they'd get a 'cloud'. We also wrote down on another piece of paper a list of 'good rules' (sharing, being kind...) - every time someone would act like that, they'd get a star. One cloud could cover (remove) one star. I set it up as a weekly competition - counting the stars and the clouds. Friday afternoon we'd see who had the most stars - that person would get an 'extra' prize - they'd choose a desert I'd make for them for weekend, or they'd chose a cartoon for the family to watch together or they'd choose a playground to go to next time... something that mattered to them. This approach seemed to engage them and while there were still issues every once in a while (of course, you can't expect children to behave like perfect angels all the time - nor should they!) it was much easier to manage.