- my iParenting
- quick clicks
- twins today articles
- twins today q&a
- community & groups
- research baby names
- prepare a birth plan
- content channels
- ip channel rss feeds
- read birth stories
- read parenting stories
- recommended books
- e-newsletters
- safety recalls
- ip diaries
- ip store
- mom of the month
- dad of the month
- editor's letter
- letters to the editor
From Our Sponsors
- e-newsletters
- Sign up to receive our free weekly e-newsletters
- award-winning products
The iParenting Media Awards program helps parents find the best products for their families.
Two Peas in a Pod?
Ten Ways to Encourage Individuality in Twin Toddlers By Nancy Vondrak
As babies, your twins may have been fed, clothed and bathed together to help simplify an extremely busy parenting schedule. But as twins grow older, most parents don't want their twins to be carbon copies of each other. How can their individuality be encouraged, and what can you do to help build it?
Marty Kent of Boston Heights, Ohio is the mother of six, including two sets of fraternal twins. Her experiences in raising 11-year-old twins Rachel and Jessica and 4-year-olds Jared and Matthew have taught her much about individuality.
"I didn't really raise mine as twins but as individuals," Kent says. "Often outsiders tend to look at your kids as twins more than you do."
Eileen M. Pearlman of Los Angeles, Calif., a licensed therapist who specializes in working with multiples, says parents can make a big difference. "Parents need to educate themselves and others about how to treat their twins as individuals," she says. "The stage should be set early in your children's lives." Pearlman is the director of Twinsight, a counseling practice in Santa Monica, Calif. and has also co-authored the book Raising Twins: What Parents Want to Know (and What Twins Want to Tell Them) with Jill Alison Ganon (HarperCollins, 2000).
Try the following 10 tips to help you treat your twin toddlers like individuals and to help others avoid viewing them as a package deal.
- Refer to each child by his single name. Avoid labels like "the twins," "the boys" or "the girls." Use each child's given name instead, like Emily and Sara, for example. To prevent fusing the children's two names together and using it as one name (i.e. EmilyandSara), vary the order in which the names are used. Intermingling the use of "Sara and Emily" with "Emily and Sara" will also prohibit giving one twin top billing. Pearlman advises telling friends and family members, "I know it's easier to call them one name, but our kids are two separate people. We like to encourage that by using their individual names."
- Avoid labels.
Want to see more?