Preventing Homesickness in an Au pair
Posted: Friday, November 13, 2009
by Marie Hansen
Au pair Selection Advice
Homesickness Prevention
Please be aware that a homesick girl can want to leave her host family within just 1 - 2 weeks of coming to the USA. It has caused many calamities in host families that were accounting on their new au pair to take over childcare within a few days of her arrival.
It is a fact that the vast majority of au pairs have never experienced homesickness prior to becoming an au pair in the USA. Therefore they cannot judge if homesickness will affect them or not. This is also the reason why you need to cover the homesickness issue during your phone interview.
b. If yes, where you homesick at that time? Did you miss your parents/friends?
c. Do you have a boyfriend? Are you living together with him? The likelihood that she will experience homesickness is higher when she not only leaves her family and friends behind but also her boyfriend.
d. How long ago did you split up with your last boyfriend? If the split up is recent, they may be back together again soon)
There are actually ways to prepare your future Au pair for the homesickness that awaits her. And, hence, you can actually prevent or at least minimize her homesickness.
Homesickness Remedy
First of all, explain to your finalist (the Au pair that you really want) the emotion of homesickness: feeling sad, missing family and friends, being sad, feeling like crying, feeling depressed (that way she knows what homesickness really is and feels like). Explain to her that all Au Pairs get homesick. It is normal, it is being a part of being an Au pair. After that explanation have Au Pair promise you to stay at least 1 month, no matter how homesick she gets.
Now that she has a better understanding of what homesickness is like and she is prepared, she actually expects it. Because she is better prepared now, she likely will have very little homesickness. You have also given your Au Pair the tools to fight her own homesickness. She did promise you that she will stay at least 1 month in your family. It is a word of honor. She can't go back on her word.
This ' homesickness remedy' has worked like a charm for me since the year 2000.
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