We like au pairs who have energy, use their own initiative, are independent, who will enjoy experiencing the USA and caring for our children. We like happy people, who seize opportunities and make new friends easily.  In 2006 we would particularly like an active au pair who enjoys doing crafts, playing outside, and helping the children do their home work.

We are seeking an au pair to help drive the children to school and various activities, assist around mealtimes, and help with the care of the children.  Because of the varied ages of our children, we would like someone who can be flexible enough to play catch with Jack, set up a lemonade stand with Sloane, and bike with Justin.  We would hope to find someone who can be a companionand an authority figure to the children.  We are looking for someone who takes interest in the children and who wants to contribute to the household.  We are very happy to train our au pair, as we have done in the past, so we just need someone who can learn, has energy, and is genuinely interested in the job.

Working hours

During August, we need you to take care of the girls from whenever they wake up (9:00+-) to 6:00, Monday – Friday. Starting in September, when the girls are in school, you will have to get the girls to school in the morning (working hours 7:00-8:45am) and then pick them up in the afternoon and watch them until we get home (2-6pm). We generally arrive home around 6:00. When school has a vacation or if one of the girls is sick, we’ll want you to stay with them during the day unless that interferes with your school schedule.

As required by the au pair program, one weekend per month will be free. The other weekends we will ask you to work 3-9pm on Sunday so that Deb and I can go out to dinner.

If the family goes away for a weekend, we will invite you to come with us and pay for your activities (skiing, for example), but that will be considered family fun time, not working time.

If you want to arrange time off, we need to have some advance notice so we can change our schedules.

Duties

We want you to keep the girls safe. You’ll need to feed them breakfast and lunch, and sometimes supper. The girls will probably have swimming lessons and other activities after school, and we will ask you to take them to those. Otherwise there are lots of kids in the neighborhood and we would like them to play outside as much as possible. We want to minimize the amount of time they spend in the house and watching TV or movies. We’ll want you to (informally) teach the girls about your country and culture and language.

Car use

When you first arrive, we will spend some time with you making sure you are comfortable driving. One of our cars will be for your use during the day. In the evenings, if you are going into the city for entertainment purposes (clubs, friends, etc.) we’ll suggest using the commuter train, which is right nearby. It is difficult to drive in Boston, as well as to park. If you are driving other places not in the city, we can discuss using a car.

Computer/Phone

You will be able to use one of our computers (or our Internet connection, if you have your own) to email with your friends and family and use the Internet. We will give you a $25 per month phone card for you to call home.

Cooking/cleaning

We will want you to cook for the girls, help them do their laundry, and help them to clean up after themselves. We will not expect you to cook or clean for us.

E aqui vai:

My husband(K) and I met eighteen years ago at university, and immediately could talk about anything.  But we didn’t marry until eleven years ago. Even in college we both lived and worked with people from other countries, and even then we talked about adopting children.

…

When our son C was born seven years ago,  K was working fulltime and I was working half time.  Karl worked four ten-hour days so he could stay home on Wednesdays and I could work all day.  He also worked from home one morning and one afternoon a week and I took the baby to work one morning and one afternoon a week.  As you can see, family life is very important to us. I have concluded, however, that I will have more energy and quality time for my children if I have an au pair who can help drive them places and make their lunches and be with one or two children while I have quality time with the other(s).  I also have a neck and shoulder injury and need to schedule therapy appointments about three times a week.  So I will need an au pair at those times. Occasionally, my neck and shoulder are unpredictably worse and I need help driving the kids and lifting the youngest one.  So if the au pair can be flexible about her hours and perhaps open to working more one day and less another day that week, that would be great.  K also has some flexibility in his work schedule, so we would not expect the au pair to miss class or anything if my shoulder is bad.   K travels every couple of months for about a week, but this gives him some flexibility when he is at home.

I also will be volunteering with Boy Scouts and taking one evening class each quarter.  I also think K and I need to spend more time together.  Perhaps the au pair could spend one evening a week and one early afternoon lunch period watching the children while this happens.

In general we are thinking that the au pair would work from 7-9 am, getting the kids ready for school, serving breakfast and cleaning up the breakfast dishes, driving the older two kids to school.  Also a couple of hours in the afternoon helping drive the kids to Kindermusik and activities, a couple of evenings a week, and the rest of the 40 hours could be flexible—I can schedule my physical therapy appointments around your class schedule, and you can do the kids’ laundry whenever it fits your schedule, etc.

We adopted our daughter M from Korea when she was almost a year old.  We had a wonderful experience of the country and people in Korea.  She had been very well cared for.  Our daughter R came to us from Korea  when she was eight months old.

…

As a family, we enjoy reading, camping, walking in the woods near our home, attending church events, visiting Seattle attractions such as the science museum, aquarium, zoo, children’s museum, waterfront, etc. The children enjoy doing arts and crafts and baking with me, and gardening and woodworking with their dad.   We hope the au pair will enjoy doing some of these things with us and being involved as part of the family, although we know we will each need our own space sometimes.

…

We live in Bellevue, just across Lake Washington from Seattle.  There is a good community college very close to our home and other universities in Seattle.  Usually Seattle is a 15-20 minute drive, but during the morning and evening business commute hours or when a professional sports event is happening, the traffic on the bridge can take an hour.  We are in a suburban neighborhood with good neighbors.  The au pair will have her own bedroom and bathroom downstairs.  The major living areas and our bedrooms are upstairs, so the au pair would have privacy in the entire downstairs floor in the evenings.  (There is a recreation room downstairs which the kids may use in the daytime for computer, table tennis, etc. but in the evenings the au pair could have privacy there to watch television, etc.)

I think the qualities important to our au pair/ host family relationship are: that the au pair truly care about the children and ther development, that she try to read and talk to them and do activities with them, not just have them watch TV. At the same time, it’s important to acknowledge that it’s not always fun to constantly supervise three active children and clean up after them.  (It’s important for the host family to be appreciative also—and we will be!).  The au pair must be responsible, vigilant, and have common sense. She needs to befriend the children without letting the desire for them to be pleased with her to cloud her judgment.   It’s important to be honest and willing to talk about annoyances and concerns before they become major problems. Both parties need to be understanding during the initial adjustment period.

We also need an au pair who is flexible, willing to have her schedule change sometimes according to kids’ activity schedules (although we will do our best to honor her need for advance knowledge and we can work around her class time).  We need someone who is an excellent driver.

We are also looking for an au pair who would be willing to forego wearing perfume and use fragrance-free versions of products such as hairspray, soaps, lotions, etc. (We are quite willing to buy these.) I realize a change in personal care products can be a sacrifice, but because of allergies I cannot have perfume in the house or the smell of perfume left in the car, etc.  This also applies for smoking—we cannot tolerate cigarette smoke at all, even on clothes, so we need an au pair who does not smoke.

For qualities on the host family’s part, we are very interested in other cultures, experienced with the little misunderstandings that can arise, and flexible.  (In fact, we are so easygoing and flexible that if you are an extremely neat and organized person we may prove frustrating for you.)  We truly would respect an au pair and insist our children respect her also.  We are good listeners and problem solvers.   We care about making the au pair’s experience a good one.

- Ainda é período de férias escolares, portanto você terá uma rotina um pouco mais relax pra começar tudo, sem pressão de horário de escola, etc. Muitas famílias aproveitam esse final de férias pra treinar a au pair com a antiga babá ou au pair. No meu caso era uma babá.

- É verão. Pra nós que somos de um país BEM quente, é mais fácil se adaptar ao inverno antes mesmo dele começar.

- O calendário começa em janeiro, mas para os americanos a vida começa depois do verão. Grande maioria das famílias procuram au pairs nesse período (maio – agosto), porque é quando eles estão planejando a próxima rotina de vida.

- Assim como as aulas das kids começam em agosto ou começo de setembro, também as universidades. Ótimo momento pra você começar a estudar, junto com todo mundo. Nada pior do que chegar no meio de um curso…

Se vocês puderem escolher a época pra enviar o application, eu diria que o mês de maio é o ideal!

Bom, e a resposta foi : tem que esperar.

A agência vai mandar todo o application pra matriz e se estiver tudo certo e não tiver nada que tenha que ser mudado, logo logo ele estará disponível pras host families.

Nesse tempo, prepare-se para conversar com algumas famílias que entrarão em contato com você. Pense em algumas perguntas e, se for o caso, escreva-as e mantenha num lugar fácil de achar quando alguma entrar em contato.

Aqui e aqui dou algumas dicas sobre as perguntas que podem ser feitas e também sobre a escolha da host family.

Depois que o match for feito, aí sim tem que começar a correr atrás de visto, carteira de motorista internacional, malas, presentes….

Não se preocupe, vai ter muito ainda pra esquentar a cabeça antes de viajar.

E boa sorte na escolha da família

No meu caso eu tinha mais de 1000h, porque precisei fazer estágio de artes quando estava na faculdade e pude usar estas horas no programa de au pair.

Na agência recomedam mais ou menos 6 meses, isso na minha época em 2005, mas como hoje tudo é feito pela internet acredito que em menos tempo tudo se resolva. O que mais demora é tirar a carteira de motorista, caso você já não tenha a sua, e as 200 horas de trabalho com criança. Lembrando que talvez você leve uns 3 meses pra achar a famíla.

Comigo funcionou assim: resolvi fazer o programa em janeiro, em fevereiro comecei a separar os papéis e pegar as cartas de recomendação. Eu já tinha as horas exigidas de trabalho com criança e a carteira de motorista. Eu trabalhava na época, era temporário, justamente pra pagar o programa, então eu não tinha o dia todo livre pra resolver as coisas. Acho que entreguei tudo pra Experimento em abril e na época o application era enviado pra Inglaterra pelo correio. E isto é que demorava um pouco pra ser aceito e tal. Em junho eu comecei as entrevistas com as famílias, fechei com uma delas e em julho foi minha entrevista pro visto e embarquei em agosto. Levei aproximadamente 6 meses.

O processo de enviar papelada, procurar e achar familia dura em média 2 meses. Dei sorte. Achei uma família californiana que morava numa cidade litorânea, no sul do estado!

Não há uma receita para isso. O importante é conversar muito com a família antes de fechar com ela. Fazer todos os tipos de perguntas. Você tem que “sentir” se há uma boa relação entre vocês, se seus interesses são parecidos, se vocês “combinam” no modo de pensar e agir. Procure saber o máximo sobre a família quando conversarem por telefone ou email, como já citei aqui. Geralmente as famílias que optam por terem Au Pairs são mais abertas e sabem que também terão que se adaptar a alguém diferente em suas casas.

O mesmo receio que nós temos em escolher uma família eles também tem em escolher uma Au Pair, que é uma pessoa estranha que eles vão acolher em suas casas e cuidarão de seus filhos.

Não tem como ter certeza que a família será a certa. Mas afinal, o que seria a família certa? Nos meus dois anos como Au Pair, em famílias diferentes, descobri que o importante é trabalhar o relacionamento. Somos pessoas diferentes, de culturas diferentes, que pensam diferente. Os dois lados têm que ceder um pouco para que haja um bom relacionamento e para que possamos ter sucesso em nosso ano de Au Pair.

Resumindo, antes de fechar com a família tente saber o máximo possível sobre ela e ao chegar lá, é importante que você esteja aberta a ajustes, conversas e possíveis negociações.

Em primeiro lugar, a fotocolagem deve ser tamanho A4 (tamanho de uma folha sulfite) e preferencialmente ter fundo claro, pois ela sera escaneada.

O ideal e que vc faca uma fotocolagem com fotos de sua familia, uma com seus amigos e uma com as criancas que vc cuidou, mas quando entreguei meu application, entreguei uma fotocolagem a mais com criancas…quanto mais fotos com criancas, melhor!

Escolha fotos de boa qualidade, que vc apareca fazendo atividades outdoor (vc no parque, andando de bicicleta, praticando algum esporte, etc) e evite fotos muito antigas, com as mesmas criancas, que vc apareca bebendo e/ou fumando, fazendo careta ou com a lingua de fora, usando biquini, roupas decotadas, justas ou muito curtas, porque isso vai queimar seu filme…lembre-se que vc servira de exemplo para as suas host kids…que familia vai querer uma au pair com cara de porra louca?!

Escolhidas as fotos e colocadas as legendas, use e abuse de sua criatividade…so tome cuidado para nao deixar suas fotocolagens muito poluidas, use o bom senso!

Quem tiver facilidade em usar programas graficos, o Photoshop e o CorelDraw sao ideais para montar as fotocolagens. Se preferir usar programas mais simples, o Picasa e o PhotoScape conseguem o mesmo efeito. Ha tambem alguns sites que podem ajudar com suas fotocolagens, sao eles: Monta Foto, Meu Scrap, Animadao e o Scrap Blog. Vc tambem pode optar por fazer as suas fotocolagens manualmente, utizando adesivos, canetinha, lapis de cor e papel colorido, por exemplo.

Aqui estao as minhas fotocolagens que fiz para o meu novo application:

Family

Friends

Kids 1

Kids 2