New AP is very homesick

[Anonymous]

Our new AP has been here for less than a week and misses home terribly. Not uncommon, I'm sure and she knows this. But as it's happening to her it's not much comfort to say that it's normal and things will get better as she gets used to the area and routines. She seems to want to just return home. Our prior APs have never been this homesick -- maybe because they had lived away from home before, unlike this one. The AP says there is no issue with us; it's just that she misses her family. Other than encouraging her to meet other APs, stay busy, and develop a social network as soon as possible, is there anything that we as the HF can do to help? Also, any HFs out there that have had really homesick APs turn things around and enjoy their year; if so, what was the key? TIA.

[Anonymous]

skpye and maybe take her out to eat and get her her comfort foods.

[Anonymous]

Op, this afternoon we are saying goodbye to an AP who was just like yours - a year ago. She was so homesick and withdrawn for the first several weeks and even months - it was by far the hardest transition any of our APs have had (we have been hosting 7 years). Our community coordinator was fabulous with meeting with and talking to our AP and also with getting other sociable APs to call. We also were very proactive w our AP and gave her a lot of support and hugs - but also very clear tasks she had to accomplish each day to keep her busy, and this helped. But before it turned around, it got so bad that I gave her a deadline at the end of maybe a month where she had to decide either to go home or else pull herself out of her funk - the sadness and withdrawn-ness were just so draining and depressing for our family. At the end of the period, she decided she did want to stay and was going to do everything possible to be successful. And she was. It was a great year in which she made a ton of friends, grew up in so many ways, became an independent young woman rather than a scared little girl, and traveled all across the country to 24 states. She is leaving today to travel to Denver and Seattle on her own - I can't believe that the confident young woman who is leaving us is the same person who just a year ago was such a basket case.

So op, yes, it can turn around IF she wants to do this and if you're willing to put in the effort to help her. We broke down the AP job into three categories: care for children, friendships, and relationship with the family and worked with her on one aspect at a time. Because she was such a mess at first, we forefronted friendships and worked very hard to help her develop a social network. The second thing was to tell her that she didn't have to BE happy to be with us but she did have to ACT happy around the children. This also helped a lot since her mood really impacted her relationship w them in the first weeks and months. Finally, around October or November she she was finally happy socially and better with the children, we consciously worked on her relationship w us.

In the end, she turned out to be one of the most flexible, willing, capable APs we have had. I do think that making a success of what started out to be a failure of a situation was an incredible learning experience for her and she now knows she can do anything if she just wants to. She is so proud of herself and knows that it was her own effort that made her so successful.

Good luck, op, and know that it can indeed get better and be very very good even after a tough start.

[Anonymous]

This is going to sound cruel and heartless. But sometimes I really think I need to "break" my wi-fi when new APs come. (just for a week) I really do think that the constant contact with home makes homesickness easier. You see your friends on facebook & skpye and it's unlimited, vs when you had to control for costs. You hear what you are missing. Or when you didn't have wi-fi you had to go out and meet people, you couldn't skpye away.

Not that I would do that - but there are days when I really think I would help!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op, this afternoon we are saying goodbye to an AP who was just like yours - a year ago. She was so homesick and withdrawn for the first several weeks and even months - it was by far the hardest transition any of our APs have had (we have been hosting 7 years). Our community coordinator was fabulous with meeting with and talking to our AP and also with getting other sociable APs to call. We also were very proactive w our AP and gave her a lot of support and hugs - but also very clear tasks she had to accomplish each day to keep her busy, and this helped. But before it turned around, it got so bad that I gave her a deadline at the end of maybe a month where she had to decide either to go home or else pull herself out of her funk - the sadness and withdrawn-ness were just so draining and depressing for our family. At the end of the period, she decided she did want to stay and was going to do everything possible to be successful. And she was. It was a great year in which she made a ton of friends, grew up in so many ways, became an independent young woman rather than a scared little girl, and traveled all across the country to 24 states. She is leaving today to travel to Denver and Seattle on her own - I can't believe that the confident young woman who is leaving us is the same person who just a year ago was such a basket case.

So op, yes, it can turn around IF she wants to do this and if you're willing to put in the effort to help her. We broke down the AP job into three categories: care for children, friendships, and relationship with the family and worked with her on one aspect at a time. Because she was such a mess at first, we forefronted friendships and worked very hard to help her develop a social network. The second thing was to tell her that she didn't have to BE happy to be with us but she did have to ACT happy around the children. This also helped a lot since her mood really impacted her relationship w them in the first weeks and months. Finally, around October or November she she was finally happy socially and better with the children, we consciously worked on her relationship w us.

In the end, she turned out to be one of the most flexible, willing, capable APs we have had. I do think that making a success of what started out to be a failure of a situation was an incredible learning experience for her and she now knows she can do anything if she just wants to. She is so proud of herself and knows that it was her own effort that made her so successful.

Good luck, op, and know that it can indeed get better and be very very good even after a tough start.

You sound like an amazing host mom great job and great tips!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op, this afternoon we are saying goodbye to an AP who was just like yours - a year ago. She was so homesick and withdrawn for the first several weeks and even months - it was by far the hardest transition any of our APs have had (we have been hosting 7 years). Our community coordinator was fabulous with meeting with and talking to our AP and also with getting other sociable APs to call. We also were very proactive w our AP and gave her a lot of support and hugs - but also very clear tasks she had to accomplish each day to keep her busy, and this helped. But before it turned around, it got so bad that I gave her a deadline at the end of maybe a month where she had to decide either to go home or else pull herself out of her funk - the sadness and withdrawn-ness were just so draining and depressing for our family. At the end of the period, she decided she did want to stay and was going to do everything possible to be successful. And she was. It was a great year in which she made a ton of friends, grew up in so many ways, became an independent young woman rather than a scared little girl, and traveled all across the country to 24 states. She is leaving today to travel to Denver and Seattle on her own - I can't believe that the confident young woman who is leaving us is the same person who just a year ago was such a basket case.

So op, yes, it can turn around IF she wants to do this and if you're willing to put in the effort to help her. We broke down the AP job into three categories: care for children, friendships, and relationship with the family and worked with her on one aspect at a time. Because she was such a mess at first, we forefronted friendships and worked very hard to help her develop a social network. The second thing was to tell her that she didn't have to BE happy to be with us but she did have to ACT happy around the children. This also helped a lot since her mood really impacted her relationship w them in the first weeks and months. Finally, around October or November she she was finally happy socially and better with the children, we consciously worked on her relationship w us.

In the end, she turned out to be one of the most flexible, willing, capable APs we have had. I do think that making a success of what started out to be a failure of a situation was an incredible learning experience for her and she now knows she can do anything if she just wants to. She is so proud of herself and knows that it was her own effort that made her so successful.

Good luck, op, and know that it can indeed get better and be very very good even after a tough start.

OP here. Thanks so much for sharing your success story. You sound like a great host mom. We are working with her and she seems to want to make it work and stick it out. She is feeling a bit better and is going to be meeting up with local APs in the next couple days. Hope it works out, but it helps a lot to know how you approached the situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is going to sound cruel and heartless. But sometimes I really think I need to "break" my wi-fi when new APs come. (just for a week) I really do think that the constant contact with home makes homesickness easier. You see your friends on facebook & skpye and it's unlimited, vs when you had to control for costs. You hear what you are missing. Or when you didn't have wi-fi you had to go out and meet people, you couldn't skpye away.

Not that I would do that - but there are days when I really think I would help!

Totally agree with this.

[Anonymous]

OP, the PP with the three-point program sounds like a truly amazing host mom and I commend her for sticking with it and coming up with and executing such a great and successful plan.

But I do want to say, that it sounds like for me anyway, something like that effort would take an inordinate amount of time, thought, and effort and although I strive to be the best host mom I can be, there comes a point when a young adult who has chosen to come to my house and who I pay about $23,000 a year for the privilege of living with needs to take some responsibility on herself.

I think you can put forth your best effort - it might be the extensive personality shaping effort that the PP pulled off or it might just be talking to her, making sure she knows you're there for her, and then telling her if she's not going to be content then you need to pull the plug on it. You do not have to feel guilty for not going through Herculean efforts to pull a young adult through her year.

Do the best you can, but know that it just might not work out, and that's ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is going to sound cruel and heartless. But sometimes I really think I need to "break" my wi-fi when new APs come. (just for a week) I really do think that the constant contact with home makes homesickness easier. You see your friends on facebook & skpye and it's unlimited, vs when you had to control for costs. You hear what you are missing. Or when you didn't have wi-fi you had to go out and meet people, you couldn't skpye away.

Not that I would do that - but there are days when I really think I would help!

Totally agree with this.

Our LCC actually suggested we do this if this became an issue. Say it needed to be repaired and turn it off.

[Anonymous]

Slightly unrelated, but my SIL doesn't try to hard with her kids to skype with their dad when he is deployed. She said it just causes problems and breaks up the routine. She says the kids work fine in out of sight and out of mind. (and half the time they start crying when they see dad, so it's not so great for him). So the "broken" wi-fi might be a good idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, the PP with the three-point program sounds like a truly amazing host mom and I commend her for sticking with it and coming up with and executing such a great and successful plan.

But I do want to say, that it sounds like for me anyway, something like that effort would take an inordinate amount of time, thought, and effort and although I strive to be the best host mom I can be, there comes a point when a young adult who has chosen to come to my house and who I pay about $23,000 a year for the privilege of living with needs to take some responsibility on herself.

I think you can put forth your best effort - it might be the extensive personality shaping effort that the PP pulled off or it might just be talking to her, making sure she knows you're there for her, and then telling her if she's not going to be content then you need to pull the plug on it. You do not have to feel guilty for not going through Herculean efforts to pull a young adult through her year.

Do the best you can, but know that it just might not work out, and that's ok.

I'm the PP with the three-point plan, and I completely agree with this poster, not that I'm an amazing host mom, but that it does take an inordinate amount of time, thought, and effort, and if you're not up for that, it's OK and don't beat yourself up. I haven't always been up for putting this much work into an AP, and indeed, our LCC thought I was putting in too much effort and worried I'd get burned out and leave the program all together after this one was still taking such intensive effort even at Thanksgiving (thank God AP really turned around about that same time).

Two things made this one worth fighting for, and only OP can assess if these also apply to her situation: 1) Once the AP decided to make a go of it, and I saw glimpses of her willingness to try and to want to learn how to be a good AP and be an independent person, I really believed in her and felt she could do it. I'm a college professor, so I work with this age group a lot professionally, and I saw in the AP a spark of wanting to be the person she said in her interviews that she was. And this is exactly what she became, so in this case, the investment of time and effort was well worth it. She grew into this incredible young woman, and it's amazing to me that a person could grow and change so much in a year. I should say that I haven't always been lucky, though, and I can remember a few years back putting a ton of time and effort into an AP who didn't have the same raw material as this one, only to have her give up and go home at Christmas anyway. A lot of effort for very little gain in that case, which of course depletes the giver without providing the reward that this AP ended up doing for us.

The second thing that was going for the AP (and us) in this circumstance was that we really, really wanted this match to work out for our own reasons. Our family had just undergone a lot of change - a major move to a new city that none of us wanted, the death of a beloved parent/grandparent - and I had no stomach for anymore change. So I was willing to put in a lot of effort to keep myself from having to explain our family to yet another new person when we were already doing so much of that just by being in a new place, kids in new schools, etc.

In the end, it worked out really well for us, but I didn't mean to imply that anyone who has a tough start with an AP has to do what we did to make it work. OP, if your AP is trying, really trying, and if you see a great attitude beneath the depression and homesickness, then it may well be worth the effort. But if not, I agree with this PP: do what you can, do what you feel comfortable with, but don't be afraid to call uncle if you're not getting anything back.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Three-point PP - I'm the one you quoted. I wish I could be your AP You sound awesome. Please stick around this board and keep giving us regular host moms sound advice!!

[Anonymous]

OP here. If I can tap you for more advice, awesome-three-point-plan host mom: part of AP's problem is homesickness and part is expectations and lack of confidence (I think). I believe her expectations of my two kids (4 and 8 y.o) are unrealistic. She gets flustered when they fight with each other and don't listen to her right away. I've told her that she can't just go quiet with the kids when she's not feeling great and that she needs to be on for them even if she's down. As I've told her, when she's on her game, she's doing great with the kids, good behavior and not. I've explained how I handle these situations (and she has seen me do it), that I don't expect her to be able to "control" them like robots, and that when they misbehave that's not her fault. When we interviewed each candidate, we said that they have to expect that sometimes the kids don't do exactly what we want the first time, with actual scenarios. But obviously, living it is different than hearing about it.

Any advice for dealing with the expectations regarding child management and the AP's taking the kids' behavior personally? She does seem to exhibit some of the attitude you describe (wanting it to work and not quit) and I know it's very early on (less than a week), but it is draining to have to give her pep talks every other day. I want to help her and I think she has the potential to be great, but I'm can't eliminate pretty normal kid (mis)behavior or be Dr. Phil for the AP week in and week out. TIA, again.

[Anonymous]

My first au pair got homesick after three months in the country. By that point, I really liked her and wanted to do everything to help, including letting her go back home for a week (bad idea), letting her brother visit (also bad). In the end, we were quite unhappy with eachother and the situation and finally decided to have her go. We let it linger too long - three months. And then it was harder on the kids. If she doesn't get better after a few weeks, I'd go quickly into rematch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Any advice for dealing with the expectations regarding child management and the AP's taking the kids' behavior personally? She does seem to exhibit some of the attitude you describe (wanting it to work and not quit) and I know it's very early on (less than a week), but it is draining to have to give her pep talks every other day. I want to help her and I think she has the potential to be great, but I'm can't eliminate pretty normal kid (mis)behavior or be Dr. Phil for the AP week in and week out. TIA, again.

I'd be very cautious about this. We had that Ap. She'd be tearful about how 4 year old DD argued with her about hair brushing or picking up or teeth brushing or about going to school. It was never ending. We did everything we could think of: She had the power to take away treats, toys privileges, outings, but never really seemed to do it on a consistent basis. We made behavior charts, but she'd use them for 4 or 5 days and them stop. etc. These methods work but they HAVE to be applied consistently and she just wasn't actually interested in being an adult with the kids. Fast forward to the end of the year, she was just letting DD go to school without brushing her hair or teeth! In the end, DH ended up staying home later in the AM to make sure it got done. I wish I had recognized earlier that she just was not cut out for the job AT ALL. Needless to say, this wasn't the only issue along the way.