Reply to Best age for au pair?

Forum Index » Au Pair Discussion

Reply to "Best age for au pair?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]One of the reasons I matched with our first AP was that she was 26 and had a ton of childcare experience, including summers overseas working at sleepaway camps. It turns out that at least for her case she was looking to AP because she didn't know what else to do with her life. Our 19/20 year old German APs (two of them so far) on the other hand have been as PPs describe -- younger, doing a gap year, but very focused on their futures and willing to work hard during the gap year. Our younger APs have been far more mature and responsible than our older AP and drinking hasn't come into the equation at all.

It's all anecdotal, of course, and I'm sure there are many fabulous older APs and many immature and irresponsible younger APs. I think it's important to do as much screening of applicants as possible to get an idea of who will be the best match for your family, but in general after my experiences I'm much less inclined to believe age is a proxy for maturity. For me it's more important to look at life experiences and goals in order to find the candidates with the right work ethic, attitude, and motivations. Not only because I want them to succeed at the AP job but also because I want them to model good work ethic and high expectations for my kids. As a side note, underage drinking has not been an issue at all for us. One of the advantages of being in the greater DC area with a huge number of younger APs is that there's a built-in social network and a ton of fun things to do for APs besides try to get into bars or clubs.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics