In my work with parents of twins, I have heard many stories—both positive and negative—about their experiences with grandparents. Having recently become a first-time grandparent to a singleton, I can now relate to the dilemmas with more perspective. The most difficult scenarios seemed to involve grandparents who did not live close by. Especially during the harrowing months after the babies were born, the parents needed physical help, emotional support, and buoyant optimism to help them through the exhaustive transition. For […]
Tag Archives: families
The Scrooge of Twindom
My short presentation at the Budapest conference for the International Twin Society for Twin Studies and the World Congress of Twin Pregnancies conveyed my habitual passionate views about what twins require to become healthy individuals. I talked a bit about how parents struggle to differentiate and bond with two babies. Despite our best efforts, we default to labeling rather than describing each child. I am as guilty as the next person of labeling as it provides a shorthand communication that […]
Parenting Is a Family Business
A few weeks ago, I attended a two-day conference in New York City sponsored by the World of Business Ideas. Many of the speakers emphasized the socioemotional components that nurture successful corporate leadership and well-functioning management teams. As a psychologist, I recognized that many of the issues they discussed were relevant to parenting. For example, one of the speakers talked about emotional triggers. He described them as hijackings of the amygdala. A vital part of parenting as well as corporate […]