The afternoon with the au pair: care, leisure and inclusion after school and nursery

The school or nursery day is over – but family life is far from finished.

Children need to be picked up, want something to eat, have homework to do, want to go to the playground, to sport, to music school, or simply home to play.

This is exactly why the afternoon, for many families, is the time when support from an au pair becomes especially valuable.

The au pair can pick the children up, shape the afternoon with them, accompany them to their hobbies and provide reliable routines.

For families with a child with a disability, there is another important aspect on top of this:

An additional, familiar companion can enable participation – and so, quite naturally, bring more inclusion into everyday life.

Picking children up from school or nursery

For many au pairs, afternoon care begins with the pick-up.

Depending on the children's age and where the family lives, the au pair can collect them on foot, by bike, by bus and train, or – if all the requirements are met – by car from school, nursery, Kita (day nursery) or a childminder.

After that, the shared afternoon begins.

Perhaps it's straight home. Perhaps a hobby is on the agenda. Perhaps, if the weather is nice, there's time for a round at the playground.

It's exactly this flexibility that makes an au pair's support so valuable in family life.

Arriving first: creating good afternoon routines

Not every child wants the next item on the programme straight after six hours of school.

Some children need something to eat first.

Others want to talk.

Still others need some quiet time first.

Especially for children with a disability or particular support needs, recurring afternoon routines can provide extra security.

For example:

Coming home, taking off shoes and coat, eating a snack together, having a short break, and only then starting homework or leisure activities.

The au pair can get to know such existing family routines and, over time, carry them out independently.

Can an au pair help with homework?

An au pair can of course support a schoolchild with their homework routine.

For example, they can remind the child that homework needs doing, prepare a quiet place to work, look over the tasks together, or help with simple questions.

However, the au pair is not a professional tutor.

Especially while the au pair is still learning German themselves, expectations should stay realistic.

Sometimes the most valuable support is simply sitting next to the child, providing structure, and making sure the homework gets done in a calm setting at all.

What can an au pair do with the children in the afternoon?

Not every afternoon needs a big programme.

On the contrary: an au pair can spend a perfectly ordinary afternoon with the children.

In good weather, perhaps it's off to the playground, the park, a bike ride or a walk.

In bad weather, there are countless options at home:

Playing board games, playing cards, doing jigsaw puzzles, crafting, painting, building with Lego, reading aloud, or simply playing together in the children's room.

Perhaps muffins get baked together, a cake gets prepared, or biscuits get cut out at Christmas time.

It is often out of exactly these simple situations that the loveliest shared rituals between children and au pair eventually develop.

The au pair doesn't have to “entertain” every afternoon

This matters too.

An au pair doesn't have to invent an educationally valuable afternoon programme every single day.

Children are allowed to be bored.

They are allowed to play by themselves.

And the au pair is also allowed simply to sit with them in the children's room, look at a book, or just be there while the children get on with their own play.

Good childcare doesn't mean constant entertainment.

Time and reliable presence can be just as valuable.

Hobbies: the au pair can accompany the children

In many families, afternoons also consist of ferrying children about.

Football training. Children's gymnastics. Music school. Riding. Swimming lessons. Dance class. Karate.

An au pair can take on an important role here as an escort.

While Mum, for example, has an appointment with one sibling, the au pair accompanies another child to sport.

Especially with several children, this eases family life enormously.

Au pair and a child with a disability: making leisure time possible

For a child with a disability, an additional companion in the afternoon can take on a whole different significance.

Because sometimes a leisure activity doesn't fail because a child couldn't do it.

There simply isn't a person to go along.

Perhaps the child would love to go to children's gymnastics but needs a bit more guidance there.

Perhaps they would like to join a music group but cannot stay without a companion.

Perhaps they love football, riding, karate or music, but need someone to help them find their way in the group or understand what's happening.

An au pair who has been properly introduced to this can provide supportive accompaniment here, within the scope of ordinary childcare.

And suddenly an activity becomes possible that had barely been feasible before, for practical reasons.

Inclusion happens in the afternoon too

Inclusion doesn't only mean school or nursery.

It happens just as much on the football pitch, in the sandpit, at children's gymnastics and in music lessons.

An au pair can sometimes become a small bridge-builder here.

A child with a disability wants to play with other children at the playground but cannot find a way in on their own.

The au pair can sit down in the sandpit with them, start a shared game and bring other children in.

Perhaps the child needs support with communication. Perhaps a game needs a brief explanation or simplifying. Perhaps they simply need someone to give them a sense of security.

In doing this, the au pair does not replace a trained professional.

They do something far more everyday than that:

Accompanying a child with a disability at the playground

For many children, it's simply a given that at some point they'll go to the playground alone or with friends.

For a child with a disability, this may not be possible.

Perhaps they cannot judge risks well enough. Perhaps they need support with orientation or communication. Perhaps their stage of development means they simply aren't yet allowed to stay outside alone.

Then the au pair can go along.

They can push the swing, sit in the sandpit, play ball, support climbing, or simply stay close by.

For the child, this means leisure time.

For the parents, it means relief.

And for siblings, it may mean that Mum or Dad can, for once, spend that time exclusively with them.

Is an au pair allowed to accompany a child to therapy?

Therapy appointments, too, often fall in the afternoon.

An au pair can, for example, accompany a child to speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, physiotherapy or equine-assisted therapy, provided this has been agreed accordingly with the family and the relevant facility.

One important boundary must be observed here, though:

The au pair accompanies the child to therapy – they do not carry out the therapy.

They are not a therapeutic professional and do not take on medical or therapeutic tasks.

In equine-assisted therapy, for example, they can travel to the appointment with the child, give the child a sense of security through their presence, and then travel home with them afterwards.

The therapeutic work itself remains the task of the qualified professional.

Support in everyday leisure time is not professional leisure assistance

For children with a disability in particular, the term Freizeitassistenz (professional leisure assistance) is often used.

An au pair can certainly carry out tasks in everyday life that feel similar: accompanying a child to leisure activities, helping with orientation, supporting communication, or making it possible to take part in a hobby.

Even so, the role should stay clear.

An au pair is not a professional assistant or a provider of Eingliederungshilfe (statutory disability support/integration assistance).

If a child needs professionally or legally defined assistance because of their individual support needs, this cannot simply be replaced by an au pair.

The au pair accompanies the child's ordinary leisure life within the scope of their childcare role.

Sometimes the au pair simply takes on the siblings

In the afternoon, too, it doesn't always have to be the child with a disability whom the au pair looks after.

Perhaps Mum drives her child to therapy.

Meanwhile, the au pair picks the siblings up from school, goes to the playground with them, and then helps prepare dinner together afterwards.

Or Dad accompanies the child with a disability to sport, and the au pair spends a lovely afternoon with the sibling.

This, too, is relief.

And especially for siblings, this additional attachment figure can be incredibly valuable.

Afternoon care turns into relationship

At the start, the au pair may still need plenty of ideas and instructions.

“You could go to the playground today.”

“He loves this board game.”

“She has children's gymnastics at 4pm on Wednesdays.”

But over time, their own routines develop.

Eventually, the au pair knows for themselves which book the child wants to hear for the tenth time. They know the way to football training. They know which playground is the favourite one, and which child always wants to win at memory games.

Out of organised afternoon care by an au pair, a relationship grows.

A perfectly ordinary afternoon can be incredibly valuable

An au pair doesn't have to do extraordinary things with the children.

They don't have to plan an outing or prepare a new craft project every single afternoon.

Picking up. Eating together. Supporting homework. Playing. Going outside. Driving to a hobby. Reading a book. Baking muffins.

That sounds unspectacular.

But this is exactly what childhood is made of.

And for a child with a disability, an additional, familiar companion can make one more thing possible:

more participation in perfectly ordinary life.

At the playground. In sport. In music lessons. At children's gymnastics. In equine-assisted therapy, or simply outside with other children.

This may well be an au pair's particular strength:

They don't bring more therapy into the afternoon – but sometimes simply more everyday life, leisure and inclusion.