Questions to Ask an Au Pair
Interview questions for families matching with an au pair: real childcare experience, how they handle a difficult afternoon, driving, housework, time off, and what to put in writing before they travel.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Tell me about your own family and what your home is like.
Why ask it
An easy opener that also does real work, because expectations about mealtimes, bedtimes, noise and how adults speak to children are formed at home. Someone raised alongside younger siblings usually describes childcare very differently from an only child.
Why did you decide to do this, and why this country?
Why ask it
Honest answers usually mix language practice, travel and wanting a year away, and none of that is a problem. Be more cautious about an answer built entirely on loving children, which tends to come from someone who has not thought about the work itself.
What ages have you looked after, and for how long each time?
Why ask it
Ask for durations rather than adjectives. Occasional babysitting for a cousin and eighteen months with one family are different experiences, and the length tells you whether they have lived through the boring middle stretch of childcare.
Describe a normal day the last time you were responsible for children.
Why ask it
A real day with times in it exposes what they actually did: the pickup, the snack, the homework, the two hours before dinner. Candidates whose experience is only evening babysitting find this question hard to fill out.
What do you enjoy doing with children, and what do you find boring?
Why ask it
Nobody enjoys all of it, and the second half is the useful part. Someone who admits the park is tedious but likes cooking with children is being realistic about a year of repetition, which is what the job largely is.
What would you do in the first hour after school with a tired seven-year-old?
Why ask it
A specific scenario is much harder to answer generically than a question about their approach. Listen for food, quiet and low expectations, which is what tired children need, rather than a jump straight to organised activities.
What would you do if one of them refused to get in the car?
Why ask it
Puts them in a real standoff. You are listening for whether they can hold a limit without escalating, whether they would call you, and whether they read refusal as defiance or as information about the child's afternoon.
Tell me about a time a child's behaviour got away from you. What happened?
Why ask it
Asks for a failure, which is where the useful material sits. Someone who can describe losing control of a situation and what they changed afterwards is more reassuring than someone who claims children always behave for them.
What first aid training do you have, and when did you last do it?
Why ask it
Certificates lapse, and paediatric first aid is not the same as general first aid. Ask when, where and what was covered, and treat choking and CPR for children as the specific competencies you are checking for.
What would you do if one of them fell and hit their head while I was out?
Why ask it
You want to hear a sequence: stay with the child, look at them, call you, call emergency services if in doubt, and never wait to be certain before phoning. Say your own position too, which is that ten unnecessary calls beat one delayed one.
How confident are you driving here, and what have you driven before?
Why ask it
Driving is where the risk concentrates, especially for someone new to the country and possibly to the side of the road. Ask what they have driven and in what conditions, and plan a supervised drive before they carry your children anywhere.
What can you cook that a child will actually eat?
Why ask it
Concrete, and cooking claims collapse quickly under it. The answer tells you whether the coming year of meals will be varied or will be pasta, and it often opens up their own food, which children tend to enjoy.
Which household jobs do you see as part of this role, and which do you not?
Why ask it
Undefined housework is the most common source of resentment in live-in arrangements. Get their understanding on record now and compare it with yours, because the gap between the two is the thing to negotiate before they arrive.
How much time alone do you need in a week, and what do you do with it?
Why ask it
Live-in childcare has no natural end to the day, and someone who cannot say what they need alone will not ask for it later either. Their answer tells you whether the room and the rota you had in mind will work.
What would you like your evenings and days off to look like?
Why ask it
Asking them to describe it, rather than asking whether your plan suits them, surfaces the mismatch early. Expect answers about friends, late nights or a partner, and decide your position before you are negotiating it at midnight.
What do you want out of this year for yourself: language, study, travel?
Why ask it
Some programmes include a study requirement, and most au pairs arrive with plans of their own. Knowing the class times, the trips they hope to take and the language goal lets you build the rota around them instead of colliding with them.
How would you like us to tell you when something is not working?
Why ask it
Feedback is where these arrangements usually fail, because families avoid the conversation and small problems set hard. Agreeing the mechanism now, a short weekly check-in, said directly rather than hinted, makes correction ordinary.
If you have been placed before, what went wrong, and what would you want done differently?
Why ask it
For anyone with a previous placement this is the most informative question in the interview. Listen for whether they can describe their own part in it, and note that a story in which the family was entirely at fault may not be the whole account.
What would make you want to leave early?
Why ask it
Rematch and early departure are common enough to plan for, and asking directly beats hoping. The answer names their limits, whether that is isolation, hours, being treated as staff, or having no reliable time off in the week.
What do you want to ask us about the children, the house or the rules?
Why ask it
Their questions show what they have thought about. Strong candidates ask about temperaments, discipline, screen rules, transport and the neighbourhood. No questions at all usually means no expectations, which becomes your problem in month three.
Matching well with an au pair
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Running the interview
Interview twice, and once with the children in the room
Use the first call for facts and the second for the awkward subjects: hours, curfew, driving, days off. A short video call with your children present shows you how they speak to a child, which no answer to a question can.
Ask for scenarios, not policies
Questions about their approach get the answer they think you want. Questions that start with what would you do if get their instincts, and you can measure those against how you would handle the same moment yourself.
Check references by phone, not by message
Ask a previous family what they found difficult, what they had to keep reminding them about, and whether they would host them again. Written references are uniformly warm; a phone call rarely is.
Write the arrangement down before anyone books a flight
Hours, days off, curfew, guests, driving, food, phone use, holidays, and how notice works in both directions. A single page read by both sides prevents most of the disputes that end placements early.
The parts families forget
This is a live-in arrangement, not an ordinary job
The person doing the work sleeps down the hall and eats at your table, so the usual boundaries of employment are absent. Decide in advance which parts of the house and the evening are theirs, and say it out loud rather than signalling it.
Check the legal framework where you live
Au pair schemes are regulated differently by country. In the United States they run through designated agencies with limits on weekly hours and requirements around study and time off. Read your agency's rules rather than relying on what another family told you.
Homesickness has a timetable
The hard stretch usually arrives once the novelty has gone and before they have friends, often around the second month. Plan for it, help them find people their own age, and do not read a flat few weeks as a failed match.
Your children will test them
Children push hard against a new adult, particularly one younger than their parents and working in a second language. Back the au pair audibly in front of them and take the disagreement up privately, or your children will learn that going around them works.
What not to ask or assume
- Do not ask about religion, relationship status, sexuality or plans to have children. It is unlawful in many places and irrelevant in all of them.
- Avoid describing the role as being like a big sister. It sounds warm and says nothing, and vagueness is what produces the argument about laundry in week five.
- Do not treat the stipend as pocket money. Whatever the local rules say, the hours are real work and the money deserves a plain conversation.
- Do not add tasks after arrival. The job that was agreed is the job, and quietly extending it is the quickest way to lose someone good.
- Do not skip a supervised drive because they told you they can drive. Watch them, on your roads, before your children are in the car.
- Do not interview alone if there are two of you hosting. A disagreement between the parents about hours or discipline will surface eventually, and better now than in front of the au pair.