First off It sounds like anyone who would compare children of any age group
to say "why aren't you more like" is just plain bad parenting IMHO. I
don't care if they are minutes apart or years. Again, luckily we've never
had teachers compare the two even in the same class. Maybe good teachers, I
don't know, but neither kid cares in that sense. What they care about is
just being behind the other one in some way and that is something you can't
hide - unless you lie. Both my kids get a trip out of seeing how big/tall
or how much they each weigh. Yes, they get annoyed when one is above the
other but the doctor keeps telling Kathleen she doesn't want to be 6'3"
which is what Chris (at this rate of growth and shoe size) should be. She
seems to think this is ok. I think at 8.5 they can handle a lot more and
adjust better than children of 5. At 5 these things were issues and took a
lot of coddling to get them through the "bigger, heavier, stronger" issues
including loosing teeth. One lost before the other - how do you control
that or protect the other from the pain of being "behind." There really are
some things that all ages just must come to terms with without being mean or
nasty (which is what I think the "why aren't you" quote is).

Shirley

"Cindy Wells" wrote in message
...
"Shirley M...have a goodaa \\;-)" wrote:

I agree about the teachers comparing the child but the kids do this all
on
their own. They do see the other excel in an area that they might be
struggling in or they are very aware of the other child coming home with
A's
or on the honor roll with the same curriculum - you don't have to split
the
twins not to have the same courses for the same grades. The teachers
pretty
much have a set plan daily witch in 3rd grade is the same for each.
Granted
their approach to teaching varies but the A's and B's come from the same
stuff. It's very tough to curtail the comparison - again, not
necessarily
the spoken word but unspoken. In our situation the teachers don't (even
in
the same class), we certainly don't compare them but they compare each
other.

Shirley


I'm aware of that. Most siblings will do that. (My dad is a year
younger than his brother but they had several classes together in
high school. Uncle John apparently was very annoyed by dad's better
grades in the science class.) However, I've seen the misuse of the
comparisons. Variously - expectations of equal achievements (to the
point of making every assignment a competition), "why can't you be more
like your sibling" applied to all activities/subjects, placing twins
in the same class when not appropriate academically so that one fails
or is bored (and then gets in trouble for daydreaming or whatever),
and the like. For most families, these types of excessive comparisons
don't become a factor but you do have to watch out that no one (the
children, parents and their teachers) obsesses about the issues.

Similarly, at the doctor's office a height and weight comparison between
multiples is not important unless it indicates a health problem
developing. In that case the comparison to the normal growth charts
is still more useful (obesity or failure to thrive issues).

Cindy Wells
(In one case, expectations of equal achievement was met by both children
aiming at C's and D's. (How do I know they expected equal grades? They
teased my sister because she'd gotten second honors (A/Bs) and I'd
gotten first honors. We shut them down fast with a "talk to us when you
make any honor role".))