Au Pair Advice

Pinky123

Hello,
I am thinking of hiring an Au Pair to mind my 2 children when I go back to work. Does anyone here have experience if using one, if so could you tell me what agency you used, what your experience was and any advice you might have.

Sleepy

First off, make sure that an au-pair will suit your needs, if your job involves any kind of long hours, a nanny may be more suitable. An Au Pair is more a Parental assistant than a full-time carer.

It seems like many people take advantage of Au Pairs and get them to do the duties of a full-time nanny but I've seen lots of them dissapointed when the Au Pair gets fed up of being expected to do far more than they're being "paid" for and leaves with very short or no notice.

Wreck

I've no experience myself, but I know someone who works for this agency http://www.aupairstudy.com/aupairstudy/Main/Home.htm and they seem to be pretty good.

Pinky123

It seems like many people take advantage of Au Pairs and get them to do the duties of a full-time nanny but I've seen lots of them dissapointed when the Au Pair gets fed up of being expected to do far more than they're being "paid" for and leaves with very short or no notice.[/QUOTE]

My sis in law currently has an Au Pair so therefore I am fully aware of what duties these girls take on and as I will be working part time I quite sure that I will not be treating any Au Pair that I may hire as an underpaid Nanny. I am just looking for any pointers or tips from people that use an Au Pair may have.

Wreck, Thank you for that link, am gonna to give them a call this afternoon

Sleepy

Pinky123, apologies if you thought I was having a go, just something I've seen a lot of.

One thing to bear in mind is that given the typical age of au pairs and the widely held view of it being rather a casual job that's undertaken for the summer etc. is that a back-up plan is important in case the person you hire proves unreliable or throws a strop over something and leaves. I'd be looking for references were I to hire one and would certainly be following up on them.

Wreck

Just out of interest Pinky123, was that agency helpful?

Chuchoter

Whats the difference between a full time nanny and an au pair?

Nevyn

Full time nanny is employed full time, has to be paid at least the minium wage and the parents have to pay employor prsi ect, and does generally not live at the house.

An Au pair is very different as they live in the home and get 'pocket' money.

http://www.europa-pages.com/au_pair/terms.html

Au pair conditions in France, Britain, Spain and Germany (and indeed, the rest of the European Union) are fairly similar. Indeed, many EU countries have signed the EUROPEAN AGREEMENT ON AU PAIR PLACEMENT which states that the au pair shall:

* Receive BOARD & LODGING from the receiving family and, where possible, shall OCCUPY A SEPARATE ROOM.

* Be given adequate TIME TO ATTEND LANGUAGE COURSES.

* Have at least ONE FULL FREE DAY PER WEEK, not less than one such free day in every month being a Sunday, and shall have full opportunity to take part in religious worship.

* Receive a certain sum of money, as POCKET MONEY, the amount of which and the intervals at which it is paid shall be determined by the agreement signed by the family & the au pair.

In exchange, the au pair is expected to:

* Work about 5 HOURS PER DAY, looking after the CHILDREN and doing LIGHT HOUSEWORK.

* BABY-SIT in the evening ONCE OR TWICE A WEEK.

'Pocket money' rates are around £50 per week in the UK, and between 50 to 75 euros a week in eurozone countries (amounts vary per country and per hours worked).

In general the posts are only open to young girls, aged between 17 to 30 years old (for non-European citizens, the age range is often 17-25yrs). Some families will accept males as au pairs, particularly if their children are all boys, but there tend to be less available positions.

Most au pair placements tend to be for a minimum of 6 months, although some au pair agencies do offer shorter placements during the summer months.

Moonbeam

Came across this earlier on another forum - http://www.aupairstudy.com/aupairstudy/Main/I-need-an-aupair2.htm .

I can't believe the rates they cite for a 40 + hour week,it seems like exploitation to me.

Sardonicat

Pocket money?! In other words, cheap labour! Looking after little children is hard and responsible work.

Nevyn

Au Pairs are meant to be treated like family in exchange for somewhere to live rent, bills and food bills free, with pocket money of about 100 quid a week while they do language courses and get to know the country and culture, and they in exchange become a big sister/aunt/cousin to the family giving a hand with the children and house and baby sitting.

Sardonicat

If you are handing over cash in exchange for something then it is work, big sisters and cousins don't get paid.

Moonbeam

I think au pairs are a great idea.
A normally young girl comes to stay in a foreign country with a family.
She does 30 - 40 hours hours work a week helping around the house and with the kids and gets food,lodging and pocket money and goes to english language classes and maybe teaches the kids a foreign language too.

I do think it is mean expecting the girl to do cooking,housework,look after kids for 40 hours a week on her own,have little time off,not have the opportunity to attend english classes and then give her 100 euro a week.

I am hoping next year to look at the possibility of getting an au pair type person with some childcare experience so have started looking in to it.

Wantobe

We currently have our second au-pair living with us, she has been with us since August and we are getting on very well.

Our first au-pair lived with us for a year and we are still in touch, in fact she moved permanently to Ireland after her year with us. She is now a firm family friend.

I think it is very important to remember that this is usually a young girl, coming to learn a language and experience a different culture and they should be treated as part of the family. It should not be seen as full time child care under any circumstances. It's more like having a responsible older sister.

Our au-pair minds our children four afternoons a week. She picks them up after school and minds them until we get home from work. That's it. That's about 16 hours a week but if the school is closed she has them all day. Usually I take a few days off though. For eg next week school is closed Tuesday to Friday but I'll take Tuesday and Wednesday off and she'll have the children all day Thursday and Friday. Maybe once a month we would ask her to baby sit but we pay extra and it's never obligatory. We give her 100 a week pocket money and of course she lives with us and eats with us. She takes english classes one morning a week and she hangs out with her many, many irish friends and other aupairs at weekends/evenings etc. She loves it here.

Before she came we asked her for a police report from her country ( France) to get clearance that she has no criminal history. She has a diploma in childcare and experience working with children. We went to meet her in France and met her parents before she came. For the first two weeks she was not alone with the children. These are just common sense things to do. We were in touch on facebook and by email for about 3/4 months before she came too. We do not expect her to do any housework as when she has the children I want her to be able to play with them, colour with them, do plasticine, go to the park, the swimming pool and just have fun. If you add housework into the mix the fun goes. This works for us for now but you do lose privacy as a new person comes to live with you and of course you are feeding/heating/cleaning after another adult so the 100 a week is not the entire cost. I think we have also been very lucky with the two au-pairs we have had but then again, we vetted them carefully. I have heard some horror stories about other aupairs and I have also heard some horror stories FROM other au-pairs about their host families!

Hope this helps.

Chuchoter

Yeah see I'm planning to go au pairing somewhere in France this year for the Summer because exchanges are impossible to organize or are extortionately expensive so au pairing seemed like the best bet for me. I actually thought there was a lot more work involved (good bit of housework/homework/babysitting 4 nights a week/about 10 hours per day for about €100 a week) so I'm glad you told me all this! It would have been slave labor! :P Has anyone any experience of finding families through the internet? Is there a high possibility of them being axe murderers? :P

alex73

We had a girl from Poland, Paid her flights, food, boards + 400 euros a month. she worked 20 hrs a week and lived with us, worked out fine.

Wantobe

My advice to anyone thinking of being or having an au-pair would be to set out very clearly at the outset the hours they are expected to mind the children and anything else. If it is set out very clearly at the outset then there won't be resentment later.

We are lucky in that we fairly consistantly are able to let our au-pair have more time off than she even expects, as I sometimes get off work early or my husband does. And when I do, I want to be with my children, as does my husband. But I know some other parents who have to sometimes work late, work at weekends and so on, and that does cause problems. Although I'm sure it would with any childcare anyway. The thing I've seen cause most problems with our friends is where the aupair thinks shes going away at the weekend with her friends and then is asked to babysit-drama all around! You've got to remember this is a young girl, sometimes a teenager, time with their friends is really important.

Also this person is minding your children- keeping them happy is really important. My husband sometimes thinks I give our au-pair too much time off and take too many holidays from work to do so. But I think that keeping the person who minds your children happy is paramount- happy au-pair will mean happy children.

ocy

Just wondering what is a reasonable amout to pay an aupair for

around 1 hour in the morning and walk child to school about 5 mins away
and collect again from school at 1.30 and collect other child from creche about 10 mins walk and look after and entertain until 5.30 when we return from work. So all in all about 5 hours per day 5 days a week.
Live in aupair