Cultural exchange is child’s play
Running an au pair agency as my own business means that I am fortunate to be involved in encouraging young Europeans to embark on a cultural exchange experience.
In addition to this I host au pairs in our own family also and the experiences have always been positive, even though there is the occasional moment when you realised that a slightly different approach to a particular situation may have worked better.
My current au pair from France has possibly been the most successful, which is ‘no mean feat’ considering the others were all great. It was nice that from day one we were able to get to know each other better as I speak French, which helped for the more challenging conversations. By Christmas we rarely switched to French as her English language skills had improved so fast, we could cover every topic with easy.
She enrolled in a Childcare Apprenticeship course and invested a lot of effort into learning all about childcare. She enjoyed volunteering in a local nursery as part of the course and relished the opportunity to improve her English language skills through the course material, the NVQ was not very difficult but some of the learning material on the BTEC proved to be a bit harder. She worked on her ‘homework’ many hours during the weekends, even though I would have been happy for her to do some whilst looking after the children. I think in the entire year she has been with us there was never a single cross word. I hope she says the same about us…….
But now to the point, my French au pair has introduced her to another form of cultural exchange, or, more correctly, her brother did. Her brother Karl and his lovely wife Mary visited us with their oldest son M in the Easter holidays. Although my children speak only very basic French (well done Club Français) and he spoke even less English, the communication seemed remarkably easy and the boys got on very well. Karl suggested after a few glasses of wine that it would be a great idea if my boys E (5) and J (8) would come and visit them in the summer holidays, Anne Laure would ofcourse come with them……. And I agreed, it seemed like a great idea and say we would like to offer to return the favour and host their boys for a week at our home too.
And although the idea was a ‘spur of the moment’ thing, it actually grew on us and we researched available dates and then flights were booked.
So here we are, it is July and I am busy in the office. So much so that at this time of year I am unable to take any time off to go on holiday. We have a Spanish summer au pair in our home and her stay was agreed before the boys cultural adventure was agreed. And the boys are in France .
We speak every day on the phone and I cannot wait to hear all of their stories. So far they have told me that they have spoken French (ofcourse!) been to the market, ridden the donkeys, made a bracelet for me, been on a boat trip on a lake and been to the beach. It seems they are having a fantastic time and J. is totally happy with E. having the odd moment of ‘is it time to go home yet’. It naturally helps that they are not with only strangers, as they know Anne-Laure so well, having lived with her all this year.
As a business, I think it is unlikely that I would invest in starting programs for cultural exchange for children, as this must be a very complicated product to get it right. As an individual and a mum however, I would certainly recommend it to families as a consideration for their children. I am picking them up from the airport tomorrow and I seem to be far more excited by that prospect then they are.
Looking forward to a week with the French boys here in a weeks’ time, I hope I can be part of their very first positive cultural exchange program also and set them up with a passion for exploring other languages, cultures and destinations.
Posted by smartaupairs 