Getting kids ready for new au pair after a transition

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      I'm in transition for the first time ever! Our current au pair is not working, and so the kids are not seeing her daily, which I think is helping with the transition. I'd love to hear from other host families, or Lcc's, with ideas on how to get them ready for the new arrival. As background, my last au pair left less than a month ago, and the "new" au pair was only here for 3 weeks before we had to transition... so it's been tough for them. Any ideas?
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solution：
& s; v. f5 s, D, f* d; }( g1.I haven't had a transition, but I have had multiple au pairs, and am getting ready to take my first transition au pair. We had planned to extend with our au pair, but she wound up with a great job offer back home, our needs changed slightly, and so we are taking a short-term au pair in the next few weeks while we figure out our long-term plan. We talk about the arrival of the next au pair, I ask the kids to make a card for her, I show them all the pictures in the new au pair's application because it gets them excited. If you can do a video chat, that is another great way. When our first au pair was getting ready to arrive, we looked up a bunch of stuff about Romania on the computer. When our next one arrived, we picked up books and movies and things that were in Spanish, and talked about how the new au pair would be playing these new things with them. I would say that that helped a lot. Good luck

2. Hi Lara,
, m/ h4 b5 K0 f- J/ w+ \There are two great places to also get some great info on this topic through your host family online account. Go to the InfoSource section of your account and click on the “Extras” tab. There you will find a section called “Advice From Veteran Host Families” and one of the topics they discuss is welcoming a new au pair. Also, in the “Extras” section is a collection of articles written by our Program Counselors and one of them is entitled Saying Goodbye and provides some really insightful information for parents to consider when a change like this is taking place in the home.

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3. Hi Lara,
This has happened in our family, once too. I think it is important for both the kids and the new au pair to be forward focused, so try not to bring up the bad examples of what the transition au pair did. For the kids, if they genuinely liked the old au pair, have them talk about what activities or things they really enjoyed with the old au pair, and share those ideas with the new au pair.
3 U) d4 u5 z, ^; ]/ j; @I might try to downplay the drama if it was a difficult transition, and treat it like a typical end of year transition (it was time for sasha to move on to her next family) and really get the kids engaged with the things they would like to do with the new au pair, welcoming the new au pair, showing her the favorite places or local landmarks, etc.
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I hope that helps, and things go well. :)
Krisann

4.
I think kids are very resilient and host parents take transitions a lot harder than the kids. We have been through a transition and of course, it was not fun. But, I think we worried a lot more about how our kids would handle it than our kids did. By the time the new au pair was here for 2 weeks, the kids had forgotten about the transition and now they don't even remember the bad part of it - only that she brought them presents and taught them how to count in German. Me, on the other hand, I remember everything about it.
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5.I had a different experience. We went through several au pairs in a short period of time, and it was really tough on my elder child. Younger one did not care at all. When the third au pair arrived, he refused to talk to her, he tells her that he did not like her. This did not go away for several months when he was finally convinced that she was here to stay. We worked with a child psychologist, and she said he was just protecting himself from being hurt. I would not down play this at all. You should talk with your children about this. When we had transitions, it was effecting me emotionally, and my elder son really picked up on it.
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2 d1 N. [+ {2 }+ M& j/ C! l6.Our 3 kids didn't care at all! We were more upset than they were-they are 8, 4, and 2 yrs old. Our 1st au pair was only here for 2wks when we knew it wasn't working out (wanted every weekend off despite being told she would be working weekends!) and the 2nd au pair a little more than 3 months (bad judgment she drank and drove our car amongst other things!) We were really worried but as others have said, most kids are pretty resilient and will rise to the occasion! Good luck!  
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cheryl2677

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ryoma

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