reference for former au pair

[Anonymous]

Our au pair from 2 years ago has asked us to provide a reference, and peple that she is interviewing with are contacting us. She was mediocre at best, but certainly not stellar, and a pain to live with. How do you separate out the horrible inconsiderate housemate portion from the purely childcare portion? You can't, right?

[Anonymous]

I tend to be neutral/pleasant. If she wasn't good at something, don't mention it at all (don't say she was a pleasure to have in your home, for example). But it's hard, I get it. Our current AP is great with the kids - I now realise that the reference focussed on that and didn't mention the things that she's not great at. It said, 'whenever we asked her to do something, she did it', but what they didn't say was that you need to ask for the same things to be done over and over again (saying, 'please always do X' works for about 1-2 weeks), and she never takes initiative. But how would the HF have written a reference that conveyed that? I also always say that the person can contact me - I find it easier to say verbally 'if you're expecting X (e.g. a warm, easygoing family relationship', maybe this person isn't the right fit for you', but if that's not important to you and you want Y 'someone who is good at keeping your kids safe', then maybe they are). Or maybe tell her you would prefer them to contact you by phone directly?

[Anonymous]

A reference for what purpose? Is she here still/again? On what visa?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A reference for what purpose? Is she here still/again? On what visa?

married

[Anonymous]

If there were any safety issues or any cases of lying to you about where she was with your child---definitely would not giver her a stellar recommendation.

If she was fine with the kids, but was just rude to you, then you can just say that she's fine for caregiving, but you will need to work to develop a relationship withe her yourself.

[Anonymous]

This just happened to us last month! In our case, the AP was just incredibly selfish and even lied about where she was with our child once and got caught. We gave a very generic and neutral letter, and offered our numbers if anyone wanted to follow up. It's hard--but you need to give an honest assessment. As parents, you would want people to be as forthcoming as possible.