With its sunny beaches, mild climate, vibrant cities, and beautiful coastline, California boasts many compelling reasons why it’s a great place to live and raise a family. However, a recent report titled 2019’s Best & Worst States for Working Moms found that there are some areas in which the state lags way behind, including daycare quality, child care costs, and median women’s salaries. What are working Californian parents in need of reliable child care to do?
Enter Au Pair in America! Au pairs provide flexible, first-rate intercultural child care in the comfort of your own home, making them a great child care solution for families in California. Want to learn more?
Here are 6 reasons why parents should consider au pair child care in California:
1. Families create their own child care schedule based on their needs.
With Au Pair in America, you will create your own customized child care schedule of up to 10 hours of care per day and up to 45 hours per week, including evenings and weekends. Parents can change the schedule week-to-week to accommodate special events, appointments, date nights, or whatever else might come up. The flexibility of au pair child care can’t be beat!
2. Au pairs are fully screened and prepared to provide the highest quality child care.
All Au Pair in America au pairs have at least 200 hours of recent child care experience and must pass a rigorous screening process and background check to be eligible for our program. Once in the U.S., au pairs participate in a comprehensive orientation program that covers child safety topics, customized American Red Cross training, and an optional AAA driver safety course designed specifically for au pairs. This helps to prepare au pairs for all the outdoor adventures that Californian children typically enjoy!
3. Au pairs simplify their host family’s life by providing care in the comfort of the family’s own home.
The convenience of in-home child care in California alleviates many sources of parents’ stress, from sick days to traffic delays. With an au pair caring for the kids at home, parents sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the 101 don’t need to stress about reaching daycare before it closes or making extra stops to drop off and pick up the kids; instead, they can focus on the freeway and get home safely.
4. Families can select an au pair based on their individual preferences.
During the matching process, you can select the criteria that you are seeking in their child care provider, including home country, language background, educational experience, age, and more. Once you identify potential au pair matches, you are able to interview au pairs over Skype to get a feel for their personalities and child care styles, and to share details about American life in California—an ideal location for many au pairs.
5. Au pairs provide their host family with an enriching cultural exchange opportunity.
Welcoming an international au pair into your home gives both children and parents the chance to connect first-hand with their au pair’s culture. Whether your looking to reinforce your heritage or introduce a completely new and unfamiliar culture into your home, the cross-cultural learning and sharing that au pairs bring to your family is invaluable. The cultural exposure and education that hosting an au pair provides will also prepare families to seek out the many intercultural learning opportunities that a diverse and demographically rich state like California provides.
6. Host children benefit from the language and intellectual development that hosting an au pair can provide.
California boasts some of the best schools and universities in the country. Parents looking to give their children an educational edge appreciate the language learning and intellectual stimulation that au pairs provide to children from an early age. Whether the children are learning a new language from their au pair or practicing a language already spoken at home, the constant exposure helps them to develop their skills.
These are just a few of the many reasons why parents seeking child care in California should consider hosting an au pair! Interested in learning more? Read more about the benefits of hosting an au pair.
Get started with Au Pair in America today!
