I'm considering looking for a family in Germany to be an au pair for, for about 4-6 months next year. I will be 19 by then but have rather limited child care experience. I'm a native English speaker and have lived in Germany before so speak fairly good German. Before I commit myself and actually register with an agency, I want to get some advice. All advice is most welcome (I'm stressing!) especially about what you would expect from an au pair.
- What sort of responsibilities would you expect an au pair to take over? I'm (obviously) quite happy to look after children, but the thought of taking responsibility for someone else's child for more than a day at a time sounds quite scary! I have basically decided to rule out the families which say things like ''we expect the au pair to be responsible for the children when we have weekends away or business trips etc.'' Is this unreasonable?
- I've done quite a bit of baby sitting in evenings and (once) for a weekend, and I teach horse riding to under 10's. I have experienced trying to get children to listen to me, but have always had the option of getting help from the parents / my mum. Would you expect an au pair to pass things over to you when things start to go wrong? How much would you expect them to deal with?
- Is 4-6 months (May and November) too short? I know many people look for 12+ months. Am I being unreasonable to look for a family for this period of time?
Also, what sort of things would you look for in an au pair? (character, child care experience, fluency in the language ...) All advice is most welcome.