Au pair not joining for Christmas

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She’s doing the job, but not well. She doesn’t take any initiative and cannot seem to have any authority over my relatively easy kids. It’s not great, but I’m not sure it qualifies for a rematch, and again, she seems to be perfectly happy (of course she has a lot of perks and a fairly easy gig).

Your easy kids aren't as easy as you make them out to be. Maybe you need to work with your kids more about listening to her.

[Anonymous]

You don’t know anything about my kids or our family, so I don’t really need that type of comment. Yes, my kids are easy.
My oldest asked her if she could use her iPad to FaceTime me, despite a no screens rule during the week, and au pair didn’t say no, even though she knows the rules. Then the next day she said she didn’t know what to say when dd asked her. I said to tell her no and remind her of the rule. If she’d done that my dd would’ve listened. She is testing some boundaries but is not difficult in other ways.

[Anonymous]

If you gave her the option and didn’t explicitly say up front she’d be taking it as vacation if she didn’t come with you, that’s on you.

You can’t penalize her in retrospect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don’t know anything about my kids or our family, so I don’t really need that type of comment. Yes, my kids are easy.
My oldest asked her if she could use her iPad to FaceTime me, despite a no screens rule during the week, and au pair didn’t say no, even though she knows the rules. Then the next day she said she didn’t know what to say when dd asked her. I said to tell her no and remind her of the rule. If she’d done that my dd would’ve listened. She is testing some boundaries but is not difficult in other ways.

Your child knew the rule. She broke the rule. That is your child's fault, not the au pair and you should punish your child. You need to parent your kid. Put away teh iPad so its not even an issue. That is not an easy child. That is a manipulating child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don’t know anything about my kids or our family, so I don’t really need that type of comment. Yes, my kids are easy.
My oldest asked her if she could use her iPad to FaceTime me, despite a no screens rule during the week, and au pair didn’t say no, even though she knows the rules. Then the next day she said she didn’t know what to say when dd asked her. I said to tell her no and remind her of the rule. If she’d done that my dd would’ve listened. She is testing some boundaries but is not difficult in other ways.

Your child knew the rule. She broke the rule. That is your child's fault, not the au pair and you should punish your child. You need to parent your kid. Put away teh iPad so its not even an issue. That is not an easy child. That is a manipulating child.

wow, NP here, do you have any kid? so your kid always follow the rules? they never test your boundaries? Your comment is ridiculous.
People say here all the time not to settle for a not stellar AP, now that OP want to do that, people go crazy.

OP, do what you need to do. If you plan to rematch you should refuse that her family stays at your place, you dont want her to be in rematch and looking for a place for her parent at the same time. I also think that you should rematch as soon as possible to be fair, not plan it around your schedule.

[Anonymous]

The parents are getting a free hotel (your home). Then she is going into rematch or home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don’t know anything about my kids or our family, so I don’t really need that type of comment. Yes, my kids are easy.
My oldest asked her if she could use her iPad to FaceTime me, despite a no screens rule during the week, and au pair didn’t say no, even though she knows the rules. Then the next day she said she didn’t know what to say when dd asked her. I said to tell her no and remind her of the rule. If she’d done that my dd would’ve listened. She is testing some boundaries but is not difficult in other ways.

Your child knew the rule. She broke the rule. That is your child's fault, not the au pair and you should punish your child. You need to parent your kid. Put away teh iPad so its not even an issue. That is not an easy child. That is a manipulating child.

wow, NP here, do you have any kid? so your kid always follow the rules? they never test your boundaries? Your comment is ridiculous.
People say here all the time not to settle for a not stellar AP, now that OP want to do that, people go crazy.

OP, do what you need to do. If you plan to rematch you should refuse that her family stays at your place, you dont want her to be in rematch and looking for a place for her parent at the same time. I also think that you should rematch as soon as possible to be fair, not plan it around your schedule.

Yes, I have kids but mine don't take electronics without permission and they'd get in a lot of trouble if one parent or someone else said no and they went to another adult who said yes. We also put them away so its a non-issue when we are clear they cannot use it. That is a parenting issue. If parents said no, you punish the child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don’t know anything about my kids or our family, so I don’t really need that type of comment. Yes, my kids are easy.
My oldest asked her if she could use her iPad to FaceTime me, despite a no screens rule during the week, and au pair didn’t say no, even though she knows the rules. Then the next day she said she didn’t know what to say when dd asked her. I said to tell her no and remind her of the rule. If she’d done that my dd would’ve listened. She is testing some boundaries but is not difficult in other ways.

I don't think it's about electronics though, I am sure if your oldest had asked her to play on the Ipad she would have said no, by using the getting in touch with you through facetime your kid knew he/she was likely to hear a yes, it's difficult for an AP to know whethere or not they are allowed to preent a kid from reaching their parents, so I don't think the answer was that obvious here as I would also struggle to say no to someone else's kids reaching their parents whilst in my care if no instruction had been given

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our ap has been here @1 month and it’s not been a great start. Early on she mentioned that her parents may come to visit over Christmas. I said ok, we will likely be traveling to see family then but she doesn’t have to come. I asked her to confirm as soon as she could because I need to buy plane tickets. I finally asked her again today and she said yes, they are coming but she isn’t sure of the dates, and they asked if they can stay at our home while they are here. We will be away Dec 23-Jan 3 or so, and I think they’ll be here during some but not all of that time. Do I count this as her vacation? Is it weird for our ap to not be with her host family for the holidays?

If this is how the conversation happened, you shouldn't count it against her vacation. You're being vindictive. Say no to them staying at your house if you want, but don't count it against her vacation.

[Anonymous]

We are able to give our APs a bunch of extra time off. My new policy though, is that they accrue the days for after they've taken vacation. We once gave an AP over three weeks of vacay and she was saving her true CCAP vacation days for a a trip home .... and you guessed it, rematch.
In this case she hasn't firmed her plans yet with her family. Say you need to have a meeting to work out the calendar and have the numbers 1-14 written on a piece of paper.
As again if she is available to travel with you or if she wants to use that as vacation to be with her family. Her family could come after your trip -- I'd be really uncomfortable with them in my home without me. There's no reason APs family can't arrive Jan 3, and they don't have tickets yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are able to give our APs a bunch of extra time off. My new policy though, is that they accrue the days for after they've taken vacation. We once gave an AP over three weeks of vacay and she was saving her true CCAP vacation days for a a trip home .... and you guessed it, rematch.
In this case she hasn't firmed her plans yet with her family. Say you need to have a meeting to work out the calendar and have the numbers 1-14 written on a piece of paper.
As again if she is available to travel with you or if she wants to use that as vacation to be with her family. Her family could come after your trip -- I'd be really uncomfortable with them in my home without me. There's no reason APs family can't arrive Jan 3, and they don't have tickets yet.

There is a reason they can’t arrive Jan 3 - her mother works at a school and can only take off school breaks. We are going to tell her they can’t stay here, but probably won’t count it as vacation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are able to give our APs a bunch of extra time off. My new policy though, is that they accrue the days for after they've taken vacation. We once gave an AP over three weeks of vacay and she was saving her true CCAP vacation days for a a trip home .... and you guessed it, rematch.
In this case she hasn't firmed her plans yet with her family. Say you need to have a meeting to work out the calendar and have the numbers 1-14 written on a piece of paper.
As again if she is available to travel with you or if she wants to use that as vacation to be with her family. Her family could come after your trip -- I'd be really uncomfortable with them in my home without me. There's no reason APs family can't arrive Jan 3, and they don't have tickets yet.

There is a reason they can’t arrive Jan 3 - her mother works at a school and can only take off school breaks. We are going to tell her they can’t stay here, but probably won’t count it as vacation.

+1 good call! Since you won’t be there, I hope follow that!

[Anonymous]

Op you sound like a nightmare

- former au pair who worked over 5 years for the same family

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op you sound like a nightmare

- former au pair who worked over 5 years for the same family

How is she a nightmare? She should not count it as a vacation as that wasn't the option in advanced but its perfectly fine not to host the family if they don't want to. Not everyone has the house size to host several extra people and its a lot of work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op you sound like a nightmare

- former au pair who worked over 5 years for the same family

And, how would you work for the same family in less you overstayed your visa?