In any home, a twin is an extraordinary gift. And when it’s time for them to go to school, parents are often puzzled about whether they should separate their twins during their school years.
This issue has become more urgent in the Arab world with the increased rate of twin pregnancies due to late marriage, which sometimes requires medical intervention to achieve pregnancy.
Of course, it is never easy to be parents of twins. One child requires extra attention increasing the demands placed upon your time — so what if there are two of them?
Here are some tips from people who have experienced these trials with their own twins.
- First, you must remember that twins are independent beings with two independent personalities united by a special bond as a result of sharing one womb. It is important to treat them as such rather than as “two copies of one being”.
- Know that some schools and nurseries impose their ideas in this matter, and some give parents the freedom to decide for themselves.
Here, you must not ignore the fact that each twin was born along with a companion from the womb, and from that moment on they’ve shared a room and maybe even the same emotions. Consequently, they may reject separation.
- There is no scientific theory supporting separation of twins in the classroom, especially since being a twin is a part of a child’s identity, according to French psychiatrists Nathalie Lalonde and Daniel Moisan, both of whom are parents of twins.
- So the decision on this subject rests on a range of family, psychological and group data. It would not be surprising if a twin asked to be moved to another class to be near a friend—not their twin—during the school year!
- Despite all the above, remember that separating twins is not necessarily a bad thing because it gives them the chance to get closer when they return home from school by sharing their experiences and their stories.
