As an experienced host family, I would encourage you to try to select an au pair who already is comfortable with their English, if you are looking for someone who speaks a particular language. I’ve chatted with a number of rematch/extension au pairs over the years, and a (one of the many) chief reason they are seeking to move on from their first family is that they did not have the opportunity to practice English frequently with the kids/host family. This is particularly common with au pairs who are speaking a language that is less available in the nanny pool—because so many families with the same cultural/linguistic background select them intentionally to work on the language with their children, and then they don’t have the opportunity to enhance their English.

Ignore the haters, OP. They are just here to stir up sh**.


We are also an international family and the chose the AP route to help with the language. Similar to you, the language is not common among the (nanny) population in the US. Your plan sounds complex, but could work. Lots of kids grow up trilingual. Your DC is 5, so should be able to pick up some of the language. At the same time, if you want you AP to only speak to your DC in the language that DC barely understands it could be problematic and at the end too frustrating for your AP. It's one thing speaking to an infant that does not understand you, but it's a whole different dynamic with a 5yo, with whom you actually need to communicate. How about you make your new AP read books in her language to your kid? Or make it a game: for the next hour, we will only speak FL #2. This way, you will still get the benefit of strengthening FL#2, without creating frustrations and without setting yourself up for another rematch. Good luck!

I don't know. If she's desperate, she might say yes just to get the match, but realistically, it might make her job harder than normal if your kid does not know FL #2 that well. Also, she may want to speak more English to improve her language skills, which is part of the program, but you're limiting her on that front.

You can ask, but please don't be rigid about your expectations.

Anonymous wrote:I avoid family like yours! On top of that I'm sure you're paying them dirt compare to professional nannies from this area.

Very strange that you need to respond. You don't even know how the aupair program works. For what it's worth, we avoid nannies to avoid people like you.

Anonymous wrote:I avoid family like yours! On top of that I'm sure you're paying them dirt compare to professional nannies from this area.

We would only consider a nanny who spoke one of our family languages - which is not Spanish - and drives well -so that rules out 99% of "professional nannies" in the DC area. Having an au pair is roughly $40K a year for our family. If your critique is that au pair stipends are too low - that is an issue that could be debated - adjusting the stipend - and also adjusting family deductions for room/board makes sense given inflation. Of course, there are ZERO nannies that would be interested in early morning and afterschool hours which amounts to 15 hours of childcare per week, including you, so your need to chime in, here, is curious.

I avoid family like yours! On top of that I'm sure you're paying them dirt compare to professional nannies from this area.

As a family we speak a foreign language (foreign language No. 1), and we have traditionally brought au pairs who speak this language and she speaks to kid/us only in that target language. We are in a situation now where there are no au pairs available in that language, but we have an opportunity to get a rematch au pair who speaks a second foreign language that we (adults) speak well, and that kid has been learning for about six months once a week in an immersion setting. Kid is five and dominant language is foreign language No. 1 (school is bilingual), followed by English, and then has only basic understanding of foreign language no. 2. Our thought if we got this rematch au pair would be that we ask au pair only to speak foreign language no. 2 with kid, but give her option to speak with us in foreign language no. 2 or English - but keep our family language as foreign language No. 1. We don't want to alienate the au pair, but we don't want kid to lose foreign language No. 1, either. Thoughts?