Suggestions to help with thier individual development

The following are some suggestions on how to help your children cope with being a twin (or triplet) and to help thme develop their own identity. But, as each family's circumstances are unique, it is up to the parents to work out the problems that arise in the best way for their children.

- Use unlike-sounding names, especially in the case of identicals or same sex fraternals. - Avoid constantly dressing them alike.

- Take lots of pictures, but be sure to take pictures of them together and seperately. Always put their names on the back of the pictures.

- Keep separate babybooks and scrapbooks. These will be important keepsakes when they grow older.

- When speaking to them, or about them, do not refer to them as "the twins." Ask others to avoid this also. Call both children by thier names to reinforce their individuality in their own minds.

- Get to know each child as an individual and give him/her time with you alone.

- When possible, give seperate cards and gifts, and two seperate cakes for their birthdays. Some families even sing "Happy Birthday" to each twin alternating who goes first each year.

- Allow individual friendships to develop. Some children will be friends of both, but they also need their own friends.

- Be careful not to choose "favorites." This conscious or unconscious favoritism most often occurs ehn the twins are fraternal and are quite different in appearance and behavior, and especially when they are boy/girl twins. Even with identical twins, minor differences between them between them may lead to some degree of preference by parents.

- After kindergarten, it may be beneficial for the children to be placed in different classrooms in school. Some schools require this. Each child and situation is different. The parents should have the final decision.

- Although we strive to create individuality in our mulitiples (so they don't feel strictly part of oa set), to the point that it oculd be inerpreted by the children that it could be interpreted by the children that one is superior to the other in various situations.

- Avoid referring to the multiples as the "older" or "younger" one. To place importance on the fact that one is "older" then the other often has psychological ramifications, both for the parents and the children, going far beyond its real importance.