How to welcome your new au pair

First impressions count. You both will remember that first meeting. This piece of advice might seem obvious to some, but meet her at the airport, a bus terminal or a train station when she arrives to you town. Don't ask her to take a cab, metro, bus, etc. to your house.
Remember, she is new to the country, she is new to your area, she might not be confident expressing herself in English yet, and she has luggage packed with everything she thinks she needs for a whole year away from home!

Take time off work if necessary, and if your children are old enough and are available at the time of her arrival, bring them along. Have children make a welcome sign, bring some balloons, stand out of the crowd so she will easily recognize you!

Arrive earlier than her scheduled arrival, so she doesn't have to wait. And finally, make sure she has your cell phone number in case she gets lost or misses you, or her flight is early or late.

Bring a camera and take some pictures of this first meeting.

When you all arrive at home and excitement dies down, show her to her room, and have a small welcome gift waiting for her.

It doesn't have to be expensive, but the gift should be thoughtful, and give her things that will make her life easier in the first few days, and ease her adjustment to your family and your locale.

Good things to include in the gift are sample size toiletries - she had a weight limit for her bags, and probably didn't take full size bottles of shampoo, conditioner, body cream, etc. It will also take her a few days to find where such things are sold locally, and her first stipend payday is a week away. It is thoughtful to include trial sizes of shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, soap, toothpaste, mouthwash, cotton balls and swabs, a bath pouf, nail polish remover, and some feminine hygiene products in the basket.

If she is from a hot climate and you live in a place with four seasons, put hat, scarf and gloves in her welcome basket. If she is from a cold country and you live in a place where sunny days outnumber cool grim ones, throw in a tube of sunscreen and a pair of sunglasses.

She might be shy and take time to find her way around her kitchen - so a bottle of water, a few energy bars, and a candy bar and a piece of sturdy fruit such as an apple or an orange are nice additions to her goody bag.

Finally, an local or american souvenir item is a hit - a local college t-shirt, a key ring with the state or town name, a mug with an american flag are some good examples.

And even though in our times maps are being replaced with GPS devices and computer map searches, a paper copy of a local map or an atlas is a useful gift. I have a full shelf in my au pair's room stocked with AAA guidebooks and maps, not only of our area, but of other metropolitan areas that can be visited in a weekend trip, or that every au pair wants to visit or read about.

Some au pair agencies will help you arrange your au pair to receive a gift package at orientation for a fee, or suggest mailing her a package to the orientation hotel as a sign of welcome.

This is not a good idea, because it might create feelings of jealousy and elicit host family comparisons between au pairs in the group, and if your care package is not as fancy as the fanciest one, might defeat the purpose of such a gesture.

Sending her a gift to the hotel might also create wrong expectations about your generosity and your future relationship.

Also consider that giving the au pair more stuff to lug on her last leg of the journey to your home, from the orientation to her final destination, is not considerate. With airline luggage restrictions, she already will have maxed out her allowance with everything she brought from home, and adding another piece of luggage will probably cost her not only effort, but money. Also many au pairs save money to spend on program registration and participation, and even though most bring some cash with them to the orientation, by the end of the week they might have nothing to spare. Don't create an awkward and potentially difficult situation for your new au pair by sending her a gift basket to her hotel.

When the au pair finally arrives to your home - her final destination, she might be hungry, tired, nervous... but above all she probably just wants to drop her bags in her room, sit down, look around, and call her mom and/or dad.

Offer her a snack and a drink, show her to her room, help her bring her bags into it, and show her how to use the phone to make that first phone call home. Show her where the restroom is. Tell her when you will be waiting for her for dinner or outing or next family activity, and leave her alone for some time.

She probably brought some gifts for your children and you, and your children cannot wait to accost their new friend with more new impressions, show her their rooms, tell her all about themselves, but hold them off for a bit. Before she jumps into your family life, she has to get in touch with her family back home and let them know how she is.

Creating a good impression is showing that you care. We professionally clean carpets in our home once or twice a year, one time right before the new au pair arrives. We make sure our whole home is as clean and neat as it is on its best day.

We clean her room, replace the things that need replacing due to wear and tear - that broken alarm clock, the missing cell phone charger..

If you are new to hosting, make sure that her room has all the basics - bed, table, dresser, bookshelf, adequate lighting, small mirror, window shades and curtains, an alarm clock, a phone set, and a locking door.
If you already had au pairs and have the room all set up, make sure that everything is still there, and is in good condition, refresh the paint job if necessary, and remove all the posters, notes, clothes the previous au pair left behind.

Give her at least two sets of bedlinens, two sets of towels, a warm blanket or two, and several pillows. Before her arrival check that everything is in good condition if you are not buying new things every year.

Stock her room with some stationery, pens and pencils. Make sure there is a phone in or near her room.
If you have or want to provide the extras, the best one is a computer with a fast internet connection and camera for her personal use - so she can Skype with friends and family back home, and the new friends she is going to make during her stay here. Another good addition is a TV with a DVD player, and a CD player.

Finally, make sure her room is comfortable - warm in the winter, cool in the summer. We have a portable heater, an air purifier, and a humidifier in our au pair's room. If you have a heating and cooling system that allows adjusting settings for separate areas of the house, show her how to do that on her first day with you.

Leave some cleaning supplies in her room - a roll of paper towels, a spray cleaner, a dusting cloth.

And finally, we always buy some fresh flowers the day before, and set a pretty bouquet in a vase on top of her dresser.

What is a family handbook? It is a collection of notes about the rules of your house, and your expectations of the au pair, her job duties, and your expectations of the relationship between your family and the au pair.




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She doesn't have to read and remember it all the first day, but setting out clear expectations for her job removes a great part of anxiety on her part.
It preempts many questions and potential conflicts.

Giving your au pair those expectations in writing is a gift. It shows the hard work you put into thinking about building the relationship, and bodes well for the effort your family will invest into the relationship with your au pair in the future.