Many parents know the advantages of hosting an Au Pair. It can save them money over daycare and hiring a full-time nanny. But what’s less obvious are the other benefits host families see. A reliable au pair provides live-in childcare on a schedule you customize to your family’s needs. That means fewer trips to drop off kids at daycare and fewer missed work days due to sick children.
Top 5 Advantages of Hosting an Au Pair
Time-Saving
With an au pair, parents have a built-in caregiver who can help with day-to-day tasks, such as dropping kids off at school or daycare and picking them up again at the end of the workday. This helps to save time, especially for busy families.
An au pair will also help reduce the time spent running errands and scheduling activities, such as after-school sports and playdates. They can also perform household chores related to childcare, such as laundry and meal prep. This can make your life easier, especially during hectic times like holiday preparation and settling into a new school year.
Additionally, au pairs can work up to 45 hours per week on a schedule that fits your family’s needs. This means they can pick up your children from school if their classes are late or cover the gaps in your regular childcare schedule due to sick days and snow days. This flexibility is a great advantage over most other childcare options, such as daycare centers. And it allows host families to spend quality time with their children without worrying about finding backup care.
Money Saving
A reliable au pair agency like Go Au Pair will save you money over daycare, babysitters, and other childcare options. Additionally, au pairs can help with household tasks like laundry, food prep, and tidying children’s rooms, which can cut down on household expenses.
A dependable live-in childcare option can be a game changer for parents working from home or commuting to an office. They will no longer have to worry about sick children or call their boss for last-minute cancellations.
While au pairs aren’t inexpensive, they typically earn the minimum stipend set by each country, and host families often offer additional compensation, such as travel expenses or cell phone plans, to enhance their experience. Unlike many childcare options, au pairs live with their host family, which means they are more likely to be involved in the kids’ daily lives and activities. This can provide an invaluable bonding experience and global connections that will last a lifetime. For this reason, many au pairs stay in touch with their hosts long after the program ends.
Language Learning
Many host families choose to host an au pair from a different country because of the language learning opportunities they provide. Younger children, in particular, can benefit from regular exposure and daily practice with foreign languages and vocabulary. Scientific studies show that younger brains learn a second language more quickly than older ones.
Au pairs can also often help with the kids’ schoolwork and provide tutoring or extra practice. Many host families share stories of their children’s social skills and academic performance improving with the personalized one-on-one attention that au pairs offer.
Additionally, it’s common for au pairs and their host families to form bonds that last well after the au pair program ends. It’s not unusual for au pairs to visit their host families and countries of origin years after the program concludes, rekindling old friendships and creating new memories. Regardless of the reason, it’s clear that hosting an au pair can be a great option for any family looking for childcare options that don’t quite fit the molds of traditional nursery, nanny, and babysitter solutions.
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Cultural Exchange
Au pairs are young foreigners looking to immerse themselves in culture while working as a part of the family and taking college classes. They’re one-part nannies and one-part exchange students, and they consider themselves temporary family members who help with child care in exchange for room, board, and a weekly stipend.
Host families can take advantage of the cultural exchange by inviting their au pair for excursions and outings showcasing their region, such as local restaurants, museums, and parks. It also helps to encourage the au pair to share her home country’s customs and traditions with the family.
When working with an au pair, the host family and the au pair must work together to establish clear expectations for the arrangement. It’s also a good idea to have regular check-in meetings with an au pair supervisor from the host family’s au pair agency so that both parties can be honest about how the relationship is going and work out any issues that may arise.
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Friendship
In addition to gaining an extra pair of hands to care for your children, your au pair can help with household chores such as laundry, grocery shopping, meal prep, and keeping kids’ areas tidy. This is a big time saver for busy parents.
Most host families find that their au pairs are highly dependable. Nearly nine-in-ten host families say they have a very good or excellent experience with their au pairs. They value the extra help with childcare, and many host families feel that their au pairs become like extended family members, maintaining connection even after au pairs return home from their year in America.
Hosting an au pair is a unique way to broaden your children’s horizons about the world. Your au pair will bring language, customs, and music from their home country to share with your family and a new perspective on the global community. They will be eager to join you and your children on family excursions, making this an excellent opportunity for cultural exchange. They will also be a familiar face to your kids in times of homesickness or illness.
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Photo by Anna Shvets