A guide to helping you raise twins

Tamela Collrin, a mother of six-year- old boy-girl twins who lives in New Maryland, N.B., struggled with whether to put both her children in Grade 1 in September or to keep her son, Avery, back because he was having difficulties. Eventually, Tamela decided it was important to keep the twins together, and had a resource teacher provide separate one-on-one time for Avery to help him keep up in grade school.

On the other hand, Sheila, a mother of eight-year-old triplets in Saskatoon, has been happy with her decision to put her children in separate classes. "It helps to take the external comparison off," says Sheila.

If you can't decide on whether or not to separate your multiples at school, consider these tips from MBC, based on the latest research in Australia and the U.K.
• Allow multiples who want to be in the same class to stay together.
• Do not automatically separate multiples in their first year of school; it could add to the stress of starting school.
• Each year, re-evaluate the need for your children to be in the same class or apart.
• Consider separation in certain situations, such as when being together is causing unhealthy comparisons, and one is feeling inadequate; when the multiples are distracting each other from learning; or when their social skills are not developing appropriately.

Challenge: Comparisons
Solution: Parents with multiples are often given well-intended but misguided and oversimplified parenting advice, says Patricia Malmstrom, a twin expert and author. "A good example is the oft repeated caution that one should never compare multiples. But of course you will, just as you compare single children," she says. Malmstrom also encourages parents to identify differences that you can celebrate.

Despite our best efforts, negative comparisons are often more likely to occur to multiples, particularly if the children look and behave alike. While parents may stress over comparing their children and preferring one child's company to the other's, take heart in knowing that these feelings are normal, says Vikki Stark, a family therapist in Montreal and author of My Sister, My Self: Understanding the Sibling Relationship that Shapes Our Lives, Our Loves, and Ourselves (McGraw-Hill, 2006).

Challenge: Treating your multiples as individuals
Solution: Dr. Audrey Huberman, an instructor in the early childhood education department at Ryerson University in Toronto, and a counsellor who specializes in the education of multiple-birth children, says seeing your multiples as separate individuals, and encouraging them to look at each other in this light, involves actually teaching your children how they are different in a way that normalizes difference. "One way to do this is to introduce each child to the other's preferences very early on. For example, use statements such as, 'Annie likes peanut butter and jam on her toast. Ben likes honey,'" says Huberman.

Parents of multiples can also give their children different experiences, which will help them develop as individuals. Stark suggests planning outings where, for example, Dad takes an older sibling to a movie with one of the twins, while Mom does an activity with the other twin.

Page 2 of 3 - Read page three to find out how to handle when one sibling excels and the other doesn't