New AP never leaves the house...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In the current arrangement, your AP has zero reason to pull it together. You work from home, your nanny is still working, it sounds like your 2 year old goes to daycare or nanny is in charge (you wrote AP is only working early morning and a few mornings, so where is 2 year old the rest of the day?). The nanny or you drive AP around when she needs/wants to leave the house. What a pain for your nanny who probably feels like she is now responsible for a 4th child.

Anyway, until you turn this over to your AP, I imagine she will remain stuck. Most of us wouldn’t be able to even be at this point 2 months into a 12 month program. Most of us need AP up and running full swing within a few days of her arrival.

In my opinion, until you insist that she drives and let go of your nanny and perhaps even “go to the office” (even if that means a coffee shop), your AP will confine in this 4th child role. Unfortunately it sounds like your current set up has enabled an already immature AP.

I do go to an office, in my home, shut the door and work for up to ten hours a day.
I interact with clients and produce a lot of materials that require concentration.
I’m not sitting on the couch eating bonbons or available to watch or pick up my kids.
My nanny is a professional and has been a great asset for years, even for the last two months as she’s taken on a new charge

[Anonymous]

our nanny has been going out of her way to be accommodating.

And this is precisely your problem.

[Anonymous]

My nanny is a professional and has been a great asset for years, even for the last two months as she’s taken on a new charge

Exactly. Which is why your AP has little reason to step it up.

[Anonymous]

You are 2 months into a 12 month program. You have to cut the umbilical cord...AKA your nanny. You have to put your AP in charge. It’s a tough transition but it’s the only way. Give the nanny a two week vacation and let you me AP do the job she came here to do. She will either sink (then you rematch) or swim.

She can drive with her IDL. Any idea on when she will get her papers? She should be practicing and studying for the test every day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe she's also unhappy to work with the nanny.
I would have hated that situation.

You need to talk to her, ask her if she's happy.
Sometimes just asking that simple question can make people open up. Ask her what you can do to help her be happy.

From what I've seen for myself, families in Italy are very close knit, her mom has probably done everything for her since she was born and that's why she doesn't clean up after herself.
You need to ask her to do so.
Maybe make her a weekly schedule and remind the basic tasks on it like cleaning up after oneself.

She's also not used to the snow ...

Too bad. This is our arrangement and our nanny has been going out of her way to be accommodating.
She won’t be working at all if she doesn’t step it up.

"Too bad"? It looks like you're not taking any advice into consideration here. Why come and ask for it on this board then?
Put yourself in that young lady's shoes and maybe you will get that it's a pain in the neck to :
a) work for a work out of home mom
b) work with a nanny - the kids must love her and it's tougher for her to bond with your kids since she's not fully in charge.
I'm sure the nanny's nice but it's really not a good arrangement at all. Would YOU be happy to work with someone everyday??

[Anonymous]

Look how rapidly OPs dialogue has changed. From “Au Pair won’t leave the house” — even though OP is supposedly locked in an office for ten hours a day — to all these other issues. Troll?

[Anonymous]

Too bad. This is our arrangement and our nanny has been going out of her way to be accommodating.
She won’t be working at all if she doesn’t step it up.

Yes, it is too bad. And not just for AP. It’s too bad for you, OP. Because the “arrangement” isn’t working and while it may for a new AP, there is a high chance that it won’t. Most foreign young adults are not going to have the social intelligence to navigate the “mom works from home and nanny is in charge” work environment.

[Anonymous]

This sounds like a really weird situation. We did overlap between 2 APs for 2 weeks (at their request) and it was awful. The new AP could not wait for the old AP to leave so she could start her own "job". 2 months, no driving, lives in suburbs and a nanny? I am amazed AP has not rematched of her own volition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe she's also unhappy to work with the nanny.
I would have hated that situation.

You need to talk to her, ask her if she's happy.
Sometimes just asking that simple question can make people open up. Ask her what you can do to help her be happy.

From what I've seen for myself, families in Italy are very close knit, her mom has probably done everything for her since she was born and that's why she doesn't clean up after herself.
You need to ask her to do so.
Maybe make her a weekly schedule and remind the basic tasks on it like cleaning up after oneself.

She's also not used to the snow ...

Too bad. This is our arrangement and our nanny has been going out of her way to be accommodating.
She won’t be working at all if she doesn’t step it up.

"Too bad"? It looks like you're not taking any advice into consideration here. Why come and ask for it on this board then?
Put yourself in that young lady's shoes and maybe you will get that it's a pain in the neck to :
a) work for a work out of home mom
b) work with a nanny - the kids must love her and it's tougher for her to bond with your kids since she's not fully in charge.
I'm sure the nanny's nice but it's really not a good arrangement at all. Would YOU be happy to work with someone everyday??

This young lady is doing nothing to help herself. I’m not going to change my work environment and my nanny is trying to get the AP to step up.
We’ve had live in summer sitters for the last six years and they all engage, find a role and help out.
This AP seems to want everything handed to her.
She arrived in NY in January with no warm clothes, we got her everything she needed.
She arrived with no computer, we set up a laptop for her.
The equation is unbalanced because she’s contributing so little overall

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look how rapidly OPs dialogue has changed. From “Au Pair won’t leave the house” — even though OP is supposedly locked in an office for ten hours a day — to all these other issues. Troll?

I’m not a troll I’m just answering the questions as they come up and providing more context because some of the suggestions are very helpful.
My frustration with her never leaving the house is that she still can’t drive, her English isn’t improving and she’s not doing anything about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This sounds like a really weird situation. We did overlap between 2 APs for 2 weeks (at their request) and it was awful. The new AP could not wait for the old AP to leave so she could start her own "job". 2 months, no driving, lives in suburbs and a nanny? I am amazed AP has not rematched of her own volition.

We have a student live with us for a few months each summer and we’ve never had an issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe she's also unhappy to work with the nanny.
I would have hated that situation.

You need to talk to her, ask her if she's happy.
Sometimes just asking that simple question can make people open up. Ask her what you can do to help her be happy.

From what I've seen for myself, families in Italy are very close knit, her mom has probably done everything for her since she was born and that's why she doesn't clean up after herself.
You need to ask her to do so.
Maybe make her a weekly schedule and remind the basic tasks on it like cleaning up after oneself.

She's also not used to the snow ...

Too bad. This is our arrangement and our nanny has been going out of her way to be accommodating.
She won’t be working at all if she doesn’t step it up.

"Too bad"? It looks like you're not taking any advice into consideration here. Why come and ask for it on this board then?
Put yourself in that young lady's shoes and maybe you will get that it's a pain in the neck to :
a) work for a work out of home mom
b) work with a nanny - the kids must love her and it's tougher for her to bond with your kids since she's not fully in charge.
I'm sure the nanny's nice but it's really not a good arrangement at all. Would YOU be happy to work with someone everyday??

Some of the suggestions are not practical. Our life and schedule works, it was worked well with our summer sitters for months at a time.
Our nanny does a lot of extra work so AP has plenty of time to bond with our kids. But she doesn’t speak English and hasn’t figured out how to engage them.

[Anonymous]

If your former childcare set-up worked so well, why change it? Why did you decide to go into the AP program? Five years into this program, I can attest that it requires you as a HM to make changes...changes to your expectations, how you run your home, etc.

It sounds like you want an English speaking babysitter who can drive and doesn’t stay home when she isn’t working. Not a great fit for the AP program.

To your points, it sounds like your AP arrived pretty helpless...no winter clothes, no money to buy winter clothes, no tablet/laptop, limited English, not the proper paperwork. I agree, this is all very frustrating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your former childcare set-up worked so well, why change it? Why did you decide to go into the AP program? Five years into this program, I can attest that it requires you as a HM to make changes...changes to your expectations, how you run your home, etc.

It sounds like you want an English speaking babysitter who can drive and doesn’t stay home when she isn’t working. Not a great fit for the AP program.

To your points, it sounds like your AP arrived pretty helpless...no winter clothes, no money to buy winter clothes, no tablet/laptop, limited English, not the proper paperwork. I agree, this is all very frustrating.

+1. How much time did you put into researching the program and matching? It sounds like you thought you'd get the equivalent of your summer sitter in the form of a live-in foreign young person.

You need to giver her (and your nanny) specific roles the AP is in charge of so that she has a reason to be.

[Anonymous]

The driving problem needs to get fixed or she needs a city match.

I am confused as to why she is not driving with her international drivers license.

In all honesty (not being snarky)...I think you will have continued struggles in the program. APs are not American summer sitters.