Last week, we had our annual au pair holiday party. We joined another cluster in Lexington and went to the Yantze River Restaurant in Lexington Center.
Au pairs ate from the plentiful buffet, did a yankee swap game and sang holiday songs in their language. 
We ended the meeting by caroling around the Lexington Center Christmas tree.
For more photos and some videos please visit Holiday Party
In The United States Thanksgiving tradition began in 1621 after the first harvest by the Pilgrims who came from England. New York was the first state to celebrate Thanksgiving in 1817 and in 1863 it became an official holiday.
Thanksgiving is generally seen as a time to get together with loved ones, eat a ridiculously large amount of food, watch some football, and of course give thanks for all the blessings in our lives. Many homes will be decorated with horns of plenty, dried corn, and other ’symbols’ of Thanksgiving. Schoolchildren across America will ‘reenact’ Thanksgiving by dressing as either pilgrims or Wampanoag Indians.
Start a Thankful List with the children: Have each child write a list of things he or she is thankful for and hang it on the refrigerator. Keep adding to the list by asking the children at least once a day what they were thankful for that day. If the child is too young to write, have the child tell you what he/she is thankful for and you write it down.
This month, we joined another Boston cluster and visited Lasercraze in Woburn for a heated game of laser tag. Adrenaline was pumping as 2 teams of 20 pairs each competed against each other in this riveting game. It is amazing to observe how competitive one can be!
We also enjoyed sitting together, having refreshments and talking about au pair business.
For more photos, please go to Lasertag.
For October, I had planned a fun host family and au pair picnic at Honey Pot Hill Orchard in Stow. Unfortunately, that had to be cancelled due to rain. We had the au pair meeting at my house instead. In true fall fashion, we had apple cider donuts and apple cider. We also had a good-bye cake, saying our official good-byes to Lilly, Ning and Allegra who are leaving our cluster the next month.
For more photos of this meeting, you can go to October 2013.
Webinar Schedule (All times Eastern time zone)
October 15
8 pm Nutrition. Good eating for you and your kids
9 pm It’s Up to You. Making the most of your Au Pair year
10 pm Activities to do with Preschoolers
October 29
11 am Language Development: Birth and beyond
12 noon Tantrums are no fun for anyone. Help, my kids are fighting again!
1 pm American holidays: what they are, activities and getting through
the holiday blues
November 11
8 pm Managing play with more than one child
9 pm Repatriation
10 pm Feeling Sad or Stressed: Tips for gaining balance in your life
November 26
11 am Help! My kids are fighting again
12 noon Activities for School Age Kids
1 pm Homesickness. Making it through
December 5
8 pm Activities to do with Preschoolers
December 6
9 pm Successfully communicating with your host family
December 9
10 am Homework: Finding the right strategy for your child
December 15
9 pm Homesickness. Making it through
10 pm Toilet Training 101
December 17
8 pm Tantrums are no fun for anyone
This is one of my favorite regional events that we offer for our Boston area au pairs: a Harvard University tour. Counselor Patti Estabrook organized it this year and almost 100 au pairs showed up on a beautiful fall day.
Au pairs learned about student life and the diversity of one Americas oldest and most prestigious schools. Tour guides provided historical facts and stories. Did you know that the statue of John Harvard (which by the way is not John Harvard, but a student who was asked to model, in the absence of any known pictures of John) is the 3rd most photographed statue in the country?
For more photos, please visit Harvard Tour 2013.
This month we congregated at my house for a breakfast in my backyard. We had a beautiful day with warm temperatures.
September is always a big cluster meeting. Many new au pairs have arrived over the summer and everybody is home now after traveling over the summer. It always is a good chance for the new and more seasoned au pairs to intermingle and get to know each other. Many phone numbers were exchanged! Some au pairs also brought their host kids who had a good time playing with each other in the backyard.
It was time for our quarterly childcare focus talk. This time we read and talked about “A Memorandum from a Child” which discusses constructive ways to interact constructively with children.
For more photos, please go to September 2013 breakfast.
Homework Hassles
Once school begins, children of all ages have homework. Some children complete their homework without any adult help while other children need lots of help.
Homework is very important because it helps children practice and strengthen academic skills, teaches time management, initiative, self-reliance, and resourcefulness. Homework also teaches children responsibility, the sense of accountability for mistakes and successes, and it gives them a sense of autonomy as teachers assign tasks to them rather than the parents or the Au Pair.
Support, encouragement and guidance are key in helping a child finish homework assignments. What works for one child may not work for another. Here are a few ideas that might be useful when dealing with homework:
*Decide on a quiet place to do homework.
*Check with host parents if the television or stereo can be on while studying.
*Talk about a reasonable homework schedule. Should homework be done after school or after dinner?
*Should privileges be removed from a child that procrastinates?
*Can the child talk on the telephone or play with friends before they work on homework?
*Give the child a reasonable break. Some children can sit for an hour and do homework while others can only concentrate for fifteen minutes.
*Are there consequences for not doing homework?
*How much assistance should the au pair provide if the child asks for help?
Also:
*Be patient. Homework situations can be frustrating for the child and au pair especially if the situation turns into a power struggle.
*Do NOT get angry with the child. Discuss your frustrations with the host parents.
*Let host parents know if the quantity of the homework is overwhelming for the child.
*Show enthusiasm when the child puts forth a good effort.
*Do NOT do the homework for the child.
With these in mind, helping a child do homework should be much easier and more productive.
Please remember: Most of you have been trained in British English rather than American English. You may encounter words that are spelled differently here than what you originally learned – such as color (colour), pajamas (pyjamas), plow (plough) and harbor (harbour). When in doubt, check a dictionary.
We had a lovely afternoon at Nahant Beach last Saturday. The weather was just perfect! Summer is usually a time when a lot of my au pairs are traveling, but we still had a fairly big group.
This cluster meeting gave my new arrivals the chance to meet other au pairs from my group. A couple of them had just arrived 2 days ago. It was a nice mixture of new and more seasoned au pairs. A lot of connections were made and phone numbers exchanged.
Welcome all newcomers!
For more photos of our meeting, please go to August 2013.
For our cluster meeting this month we congregated in my backyard for a barbecue. We had a nice big group of au pairs, lots to eat and many good conversations.
Summer is a big change-over time in the au pair world, so for many of my au pairs it was their last meeting and for some their first. It was so nice to see how the more seasoned au pairs gave advice to the newer au pairs. It is not easy leaving your family and friends in your home country. My cluster meetings are an excellent opportunity for au pairs to establish a new social network.
For more photos, please go to July Barbecue.
