Reply to AP and phones: texting, skyping, facebook, oh my!

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[quote=Anonymous]OP - we have hosted two Au Pairs.  With our first, our daughter was an infant and slept a majority of the day, so we allowed our AP to use her computer/text while the baby was napping.  It worked our fine, as she was very responsive and good with our child generally.  She also had a very active social life (i.e., she made the best of her time in the U.S. and had lots of friends who she spent time with frequently and her life didn't revolve around FB).  She was not an addict.

With our second, we established rules that allowed her to Skype/Text/FB/etc. while our daughter napped.  She's respected our wishes and followed our rules...for the most part.  However, we have caught her on FB and Skype during work hours on a few occasions (addressed the issue immediately), and have had to ask her repeatedly to keep her phone off the dinner table/put it away during meal time, etc.  It took months, but she finally got the message that we weren't playing around.  Problem with AP #2 is that she really didn't make any friends outside of FB, didn't go out much, and spent a majority of her free time on her phone/computer, and she was not at all independent (wanted to spend an unhealthy amount of time sitting in our living room/at the kitchen island texting/on FB rather than go out and see the city).  Later in the year, she starting meeting men on-line and eventually did go out on occasion...but that's another issue.  Long story short, if she weren't a fantastic AP otherwise, we would have likely taken the phone (that we pay close to $100 per month for) away.

Bottom line, with next AP - the rules will change.  No cell phone/no FB/Skype/Etc. during work hours unless calling me or absolute emergency.  I used to worry about being to strict, or being inflexible, but the safety of my child is paramount and I now know that setting the rules up front makes it much easier to navigate the issue going forward.    We will make sure that the AP that joins us understands these rules.  If he/she doesn't like them, she can match with another family.    [/quote]

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