May an au pair take my child to school, therapy or clubs?
Taking a child to school in the morning. Picking them up from a therapy appointment. Driving them to football training. Staying with them at children's gymnastics. Accompanying a child with a disability on their way somewhere, or making it possible for them to take part in a leisure activity in the first place.
For many families, a large part of everyday life doesn't consist only of classic childcare at home – it consists, above all, of getting children safely from one place to the next and making it possible for them to take part in everyday life at all.
For families with a child with a disability in particular, this kind of accompanying can be an enormous relief.
Because some children could, in principle, attend a school, take part in a sports activity, go to music school or pursue a hobby of their own – but they can't yet manage the journey there, or the situation once they have arrived, entirely on their own.
This is where an au pair can be a valuable support and companion within the framework of everyday family life.
May an au pair take a child to school?
Yes. An au pair can take children to school in the morning and pick them up again once school finishes for the day.
Depending on the child's age, the distance involved and the conditions on the ground, this can happen on foot, by bicycle, by bus and train, or by car.
For many families, this school-run accompaniment by the au pair is simply a normal, everyday part of the weekly plan.
It can be especially valuable for a child who cannot yet manage the way to school independently, whether because of their age, their developmental stage, or a disability.
Perhaps the child can't yet judge traffic hazards well enough.
Perhaps they need orientation.
Perhaps they can't yet use public transport on their own.
Or they simply need a familiar person who gives them a sense of security on the way.
Then the au pair can walk or travel to school together with the child and hand them over safely there.
Accompanying the school run and formal school support (Schulbegleitung) are not the same thing
These two concepts should be distinguished from one another.
Accompanying the school run generally ends once the child has arrived safely at school.
Schulbegleitung (formal school support, a professionally arranged one-to-one support role during the school day), on the other hand, supports a child during their school day and, where relevant, during lessons. Whether such support is needed, in what form, and whether it can be funded, depends on the child's individual support needs and on the responsible funding body.
For everyday au pair life, what matters first is this:
Taking a child to school and picking them up can be a perfectly normal au pair task.
And it is exactly these seemingly small windows of time at the edges of the day that can add up to an enormous relief for a family.
For a child with a disability, the journey itself can be the deciding factor
Sometimes the school itself isn't the organisational problem at all.
The child has their school place, feels perfectly comfortable there and is well looked after throughout the school day.
But in the morning, someone has to travel with them.
At midday, someone has to be standing outside the school again.
Perhaps, because of their disability, the child can't take the bus alone or manage the walk on their own.
For parents who both work, these exact times of day can be surprisingly difficult to cover.
An au pair can become a reliable companion here in everyday life.
And sometimes it's exactly these 30 or 45 minutes in the morning and afternoon that provide the support a family had been missing.
May an au pair accompany a child to therapy?
Accompanying a child to therapy appointments can also be part of everyday family life.
An au pair can, for example, take a child to speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, physiotherapy or equine-assisted therapy, and pick them up again afterwards.
If the parents, the therapist and the practice all agree, the au pair may also stay and watch during the appointment, where relevant.
For a child with a disability in particular, a familiar person can provide extra security.
The child knows their au pair from everyday family life. They know: there is someone here I trust, and who will stay with me the whole time.
This can be especially helpful in new situations or transitions.
Watching a therapy session and learning for everyday life
It can even be worthwhile for the au pair to occasionally be present at a therapy session.
Perhaps they see how a child is encouraged to communicate there.
Perhaps they learn a particular sign.
Perhaps a therapist shows how a child can be playfully encouraged towards a certain movement or action as part of ordinary everyday life.
Or the au pair sees how a talker (a speech-generating device) or other forms of supported communication are used.
Ideas like these can later flow quite naturally into ordinary, everyday family life.
This does not mean, however, that the au pair then carries out therapy themselves.
Accompanying therapy does not mean taking it over
This distinction matters a great deal to us at Besondere Sterne.
An au pair may accompany a child to therapy, watch where relevant, and bring ideas home for their shared everyday life together.
But this does not turn them into a therapist.
They do not draw up therapy plans, do not make medical decisions, and do not take on any specialist therapeutic or nursing tasks.
But of course an au pair is allowed to get to know and use things that are already part of the child's everyday life anyway.
If a child uses a talker, for example, the au pair can of course pass it to them while playing together.
If the child uses supportive signs, the au pair can learn them.
And if a therapist shows how the child can be playfully encouraged to do something, that idea can also be picked up during shared play at home.
May an au pair accompany a child to sport or a club?
Accompanying a child to leisure activities, clubs and hobbies can also fit wonderfully into everyday au pair life alongside everything else.
The au pair can, for example, accompany a child to:
- Football or other sports activities
- Children's gymnastics
- Swimming
- Karate or other martial arts activities
- Music school or music garden
- Riding
- Dance lessons
- Play groups
- Leisure activities or holiday programmes
For many children, this simply means: dropping them off and picking them up again later on.
For a child with a disability, though, this kind of accompanying can sometimes achieve so much more.
When the au pair enables participation as leisure assistance
Perhaps a child with a disability would love more than anything to go to children's gymnastics.
The club itself is open to it, and the child could, in principle, take part – but they need someone who goes along with them.
Perhaps they need orientation within the group.
Perhaps support with communication.
Perhaps a task needs to be explained again in a simpler way.
Perhaps the child needs help with transitions, or simply the security of knowing a familiar person is nearby.
This is where an au pair can play a valuable role as leisure assistance.
They accompany the child, provide reassurance and a sense of safety, and help them take part in a leisure activity that might otherwise be difficult, or impossible, to access without additional support.
An au pair as leisure assistance for a child with a disability
This possibility can be especially interesting for families raising a child with a disability.
Because leisure assistance doesn't have to mean that some complicated support programme is constantly under way.
Sometimes assistance simply means:
Going along.
Along to the football pitch.
Along to music lessons.
Along to children's gymnastics.
Along to the playground.
Along to riding.
Staying there, giving orientation, supporting communication, and helping the child find their place within the group.
An au pair who knows the child well, and who lives alongside them day after day, can become a familiar and reliable form of leisure assistance in exactly this way.
Can an au pair as leisure assistance be funded through the Persönliches Budget?
Under certain conditions, the Persönliches Budget (personal budget, a cash payment scheme for organising one's own assistance) can also be of interest to families with a child with a disability.
Depending on individual support needs and how the application is approved, assistance services can be organised through this route. In this context, an au pair working as leisure assistance can also be one possible option.
Whether and to what extent this can be approved and funded in a specific case must always be clarified individually with the responsible funding body.
The Persönliches Budget is therefore a subject all of its own, one that families should look into early on if their child needs assistance in the area of leisure activities.
The au pair as a bridge-builder at the playground
Leisure assistance doesn't always have to mean an organised club.
Even a perfectly ordinary visit to the playground can be genuinely difficult for a child with a disability without someone alongside them.
Perhaps, because of their developmental stage, the child can't stay outside alone.
Perhaps they find it hard to connect with other children.
Perhaps they need support with communication.
The au pair can go along too, sit together in the sandpit, play ball, or start a game and draw other children into it.
In this way, they can become a small bridge-builder between the child with a disability and the other children around them.
And that is exactly where inclusion happens.
Not only at school or nursery.
But right in the middle of ordinary everyday childhood.
Clubs may be able to open their doors as a result
An additional companion can be a great help for clubs, too, and not only for families.
Perhaps a club would love to welcome a child with a disability but simply cannot provide individual one-to-one support of its own.
If the child brings their au pair along as familiar leisure assistance, and this is agreed with the club in question beforehand, a new possibility for taking part may well open up.
Of course, it always has to be looked at on an individual basis what support the child actually needs, and what the particular club is realistically able to provide.
But sometimes no grand solution is missing at all.
Sometimes what's missing is simply one additional person who comes along.
Accompanying time is also working time
One important point must not be forgotten amid all these possibilities:
Time spent accompanying a child in this way counts as part of the au pair's working time, just like any other task.
When the au pair takes a child to school, drives them to therapy or accompanies them to children's gymnastics, this time is included accordingly in the daily and weekly working-time plan.
If their presence is required and they are supporting the child, this is not leisure time – not even when the activity happens to be enjoyable, and the au pair themselves has fun doing it.
The general working-time limits of the au pair programme also apply here: a maximum of six hours a day and 30 hours a week.
An au pair can open up paths – sometimes quite literally
Who takes them to school?
Who picks them up in the afternoon?
Who drives them to speech therapy?
Who accompanies them to football?
Who stays with them at children's gymnastics?
And who goes with them to the playground, when the child can't go alone because of their disability?
For families, it is often exactly these many small journeys and appointments that turn out to be hardest to fit together in everyday life.
An au pair can be a valuable extra person here.
And for a child with a disability, something much bigger can come of it:
more independence, more leisure time, and more participation.
Not because the au pair suddenly becomes a therapist or a qualified care professional.
But because there is a familiar person who accompanies the child through everyday life, who can support them as leisure assistance, and who, at just the right moment, simply turns and says:
“Come on, I'll go with you.” (Translated)
