Dealing with fairness when you have twins
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Joan Friedman, PhD Psychologist and Twin Expert, shares advice for parents with twins on how to best handle issues of fairness between the two siblings
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“That’s not fair!” is something you’ll hear in most households raising children. However, if you’re raising twins, you might hear “That’s not fair!” from the minute the twins wake up in the morning until the time they go to bed at night. Twins are incredibly adapt at keeping track of who’s done what and who has what.
“You have more juice in your cup than I do!”
“You spent longer weeding with daddy than I did!”
“You were in the front seat last time!”
Parents of twins really have to get this in a perspective and take it all in stride. And remember, life is not fair and twins are not equal. Parents really have to develop a resiliency and an attitude of how much they can tolerate and how much attention they can pay without driving everybody insane.
One thing that parents can do to help make this a little bit easier is switch off odd/even days. On odd days, one goes first and on even days, the other one goes first. Some parents do it weekly – queen for a week, king for a week. And that’s one way that they’re able to regulate the fairness issue more equitably.
Joan Friedman, PhD Psychologist and Twin Expert, shares advice for parents with twins on how to best handle issues of fairness between the two siblings
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Joan Friedman, PhDPsychologist & Twin Expert
Dr. Joan A. Friedman is a prominent and well-respected twin expert who shares her passionate views and insights about twins and their emotional needs with twins and their families throughout the world. The fact that she is an identical twin and the mother of five, including fraternal twin sons, makes her ideally suited to this task. Her commitment to twin research and her treatment of twins of all ages demonstrate the breadth and depth of her skills and experience. She conducts ongoing groups for parents of twins and provides consultation on twin related matters such as school placements, developmental discrepancies, and behavioral issues.
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