How to go about building a good relationship?
It takes time, patience, trust, mutual respect and open communication to build a good relationship with the children in your charge. Sometimes this happens fast if there is a good ‘click’ but if you are the new au pair and the children really loved their past au pair then know its going to take time and a bit of work to win them over but outright spoiling is not going to do the trick – kids are smarter than that.
How children should be disciplined also depends on their age and stage of development. Thus it is important to have knowledge of what you can expect of their age group. Please discuss expectations of the child’s development with the parents, read up via books or online via the many websites available on the subject. Please also read our article on the summary of the different age groups
Building your relationship is going to be an ongoing process particularly as part of your duties as an au pair is to guide their discipline and behaviour. Teaching them to be responsible, assisting them in learning to resolve issues and allowing them to develop skills they will use later in life. In short you are the positive role-model assisting their development of self discipline and control.