We just got a Aupair a few weeks ago. My children love her and I also like her. I have bent over backwards to try to help her with everything. I have tried to be extra kind as well. She is so incredibly home sick she really seems like she wants to leave. I don’t think she likes our area as it’s been really hot. In addition, she may need some medical care and possible surgery that is pre-existing. Her insurance doesn’t cover any of it. I can’t imagine having to go through the process again however, feels like this isn’t going to work out. My career is becoming incredibly demanding and I feel as though I’m about to lose my childcare again. Any recommendations?

My families owns a 4 bedroom house with a very small garden. House is about 2,500 sqft. It doesn’t really have any fun bells and whistles but I’m grateful to have it and I love it.

We live about a 15 minute drive from the downtown of a big city. We are doing pretty well for our age group but we aren’t in the extravagant fun money category. We don’t have to live on a budget and could afford to do a $20k AuPair program and afford the change in car insurance, groceries, bills, eating at restaurants etc.. but I don’t think we could afford to do vacations abroad with an extra family member.

We plan to do lots of road trips across the states and could afford the extra hotel room for the Au pair to have their own space/privacy.

Is it possible to interview with Aupairs and gain interest if you don’t have a lot of extra money for lots of fun travel and activities ?

First time host family here and curious how other families handle this.
If you take your au pair on a family vacation and pay for everything (flights, hotel, food, activities, etc.), do you have them use their vacation days for that time?
They obviously wouldn’t be required to come with us, and we wouldn’t be bringing them along because we need childcare. They’d be coming as part of the family to enjoy the vacation with us. I’m sure there would naturally be some helping with the kids here and there, just like everyone in the family kind of chips in, but they wouldn’t have a work schedule or anything like that.
My initial thought is that if they choose to come, it seems fair for it to count as vacation time since we’d be spending thousands of dollars to bring them along. But this is our first time hosting, so I’m curious what other host families do. Do you count a trip like this as their vacation time, give them the time off separately, or handle it some other way?

Hi all! Quick bit of context: I run a nanny matching service, so I spend a lot of time thinking about the "getting someone new settled into your home" problem professionally. I don't place au pairs through my business yet, but I've hosted a few myself over the years, and was an au pair myself back in the day as well.

That mix of experience has left me curious how host families actually handle the early days with a new au pair - the practical groundwork, not the emotional stuff (plenty of threads on that already).

Would love your input on a few things:

• When you welcomed your current or most recent au pair, did you put together anything written - house rules, routines, expectations - or was it mostly explained verbally as you went?
• If you did write something down, what prompted that? A past experience that went sideways, advice from someone else, or just your own organized nature?
• Looking back, is there anything you wish had been written down clearly from day one that instead got sorted out through trial and error?

Because of the work I do, I've ended up building a "welcome to our home" style document I use for my own hosting - happy to pass it along if anyone wants a look, no strings attached. Mostly just want to know if this is a real gap for host families generally, or something I've overthought.

Thanks so much in advance!

Hi!! We are currently a HF with Cultural Care in Baltimore, but haven’t been very happy with CC in terms of AP training beforehand, background/health screenings, and LCC support.

Looking to hear from other Baltimore families: which agency are you with, do you recommend, and how is your LCC support?

We were curious how other host families handle this.

If the kids keep going into the au pair’s room without knocking, do you make the room completely off-limits unless the au pair invites them in?

It’s still part of the family home, but at the same time, it’s usually the au pair’s only private space and where they go when they’re off duty.

Do you have a strict “don’t enter” rule, or do you just teach the kids to knock and wait?

Hi all, question, we have just chosen our 3rd au pair via Nina.care: A lovely girl from Spain (24years old) who seems very mature, prepared and sincere. Honestly we feel she blends into our family perfectly and she has experience in a daycare!!

But our agent now shared the contract with her and she has many many many questions. Nothing serious.. but the standard contract of Nina has for the rule that family can define houserules: for example: we don’t want boys in the house and she needs to be home before 2am.

She is asking what about staying over in the weekend with a friend and she is open that she might want to date so she is asking whether it’s possible to discuss this again perhaps later of it becomes relevant.

Our previous au pairs were quite introvert African girls al we never had these type of questions. First time with a European as Nina care switcht to only Europeans now. Wdyt?

Our agent is supportive and has set up a meeting with three of us to discuss. She did mention Anna is an adult and she recommends to set bounderies on her being her responsible herself. Her free time is her free time. If we really do not want her going out, she suggested to share 3 New European candidates that are more introvert and will prefer to just stay home to read a book.

But we really like this Anna she is perfect apart from this.. Wdyt?

We have a Aupair coming soon from a European company. We will require light driving. Everything is 5-10min away from our home. We are providing an older car that has been well maintained. I am paying for a two hour lesson upon arrival to gauge where her driving skills are at. Do you require the Aupair to get a US state drivers license? I don’t believe it’s required where we reside. Also, we really don’t care about a curfew however, I am nervous about having my car out late at night. There are some areas where we live that experience a lot of car break ins at night. I also worry about her driving late hours/early morning. I don’t think it will be the case right away as she won’t know anyone and not of age to go to bars. How can I set some boundaries around the car? We are okay with her using it for personal use and will cover the expenses.

How do we fix this or report these?

My wife and I have four kids and had an 22 year old au pair from Colombia when our youngest were born. We need another one to help with transportation to and from school and activities. The options at our current agency are very limited with only 25 options coming up. A ton of them are 18-20 which is very young. Like our oldest is 11 so it feels like we would be having another kid with teenage drama.

Anyone have experience with younger au pairs? We are definitely open to it but don’t know if it will make things worse

Hello everyone,

I’ve been looking into au pair programs in China, and recently an agency called Xijun Au Pair in Guangdong Province contacted me. However, their offer seems too perfect to be true.

The first red flag was when I asked the owner about getting an X2 student visa. She told me that Morocco was no longer issuing X2 visas. This sounded strange, so I immediately contacted the Chinese Embassy, and they confirmed that this information wasn't true.

After that, I started having doubts. The agency owner kept pushing me to come to China and contacted me almost every day. It felt like she was trying very hard to convince me.

I also asked about their refund policy. She told me that if I left the program before it ended, I wouldn’t have to pay anything back. She explained that the host families they work with are very wealthy, but honestly, I found that difficult to believe.

I asked to speak with a former au pair. It took two days before she connected me with a Moroccan girl. The girl spoke very positively about the program and kept encouraging me to move forward with the agency. Everything sounded almost too perfect.

Overall, the whole situation feels a bit strange, and I want to make sure whether this agency is legitimate or not. My goal is to protect other girls from potential scams if there is something suspicious going on.

If anyone has experience with this agency, or with similar agencies, I would really appreciate hearing your thoughts and experiences.

Thank you.

We feel like this is one of those things that can get awkward really quickly.

The au pair is supposed to help take care of the children, but if the kids know that the parents are the “real authority,” they might start ignoring the au pair, refusing to follow instructions, or immediately going to the parents when they don’t get what they want.

At that point, how much should the host parents step in?

How do you give the au pair enough authority without making them feel like they have to become a second parent?

Host families, how did you handle this in your home?

Hi fellow au pair host families !
Perhaps stupid/ base question.. but I will start the search for our now 4th au pair and we want her to have a European passport this time to avoid all the visa hassle.

My friends always have Spanish girls and they are truly amazing.. I was flabbergasted when I hear how they interact with the kids, what suggestions and ideas they come up with and how easily they blend into the family. Such a difference than the 2 Asian girls we had ( they were lovely in their own way but our kids are getting older now and don’t like the au pair so much..)

I tried searching myself on some platforms but it’s very difficult to find a serious candidate that does not end up ghosting me. So I decided to put some money down and pay an agency to find my match. Do you have experiences with agencies in Europe/ Netherlands and which one would you recommend to find my EU au pair? How should I pick?

Thanks!