Wherever I travel to talk with parents of twins, I hear the ever-present complaint about teachers who cannot distinguish one twin from thee another. In fact, when parents read the teacher’s notes about each sibling, many parents realize that the teacher has no idea who is who. Apparently, the reports do not reflect the skills or personality traits of the twin who is supposedly being described. Twins’ families have trouble understanding why their children’s distinctness is lost on so many […]

Having two same-age children makes relating to each one individually a challenge. Of course, that is the vital task for parents raising twins. We may be naturally inclined to identify more with one twin than the other because they are very different children. At times, we might identify with the one who is more like us or perhaps with the one who is less like us. Whichever is the case, being aware of our predilections is important so we can […]

Parents, relatives, friends, and teachers all marvel at the empathic connection that many twin pairs exhibit. Even though they do fight and have intense moments of sibling rivalry, they often instantly rebound from conflict and turmoil by themselves. Play is resumed as if nothing happened. Their “twin synergy” enables the pairs to stay connected and engaged, ready to resume their regulating reciprocity. However, as twins get older, their families begin to discern some changes in this seamless overaccommodating behavior. While […]

It breaks my heart when I speak to an identical twin whose sibling has a psychiatric disorder. In addition to the healthy twin’s distress and sadness about her sibling’s state of mind, she often believes that she somehow contributed to her sister’s mental condition. Most of the twins I have worked with experience an enormous sense of guilt and shame over their sibling’s psychological disturbance. The healthy twin can identify specific experiences where her sister may have felt resentful of […]

An identical twin woman (whom I will call Jody) in her midseventies described her lifelong commitment to caring for her sister, Ellen. She said, “When I received my waitressing tips, I dumped them onto the table so that Ellen could take her share.” She explained that after she and her twin were abandoned by their mother at age two, they kept one another emotionally afloat and forged an unbreakable bond. However, life has not been easy for Ellen. In the […]