Twin Tuesday – The Kindergarten Experience
Beginning kindergarten is a big step for your twins. As they begin their education, they are faced with many changes – being away from mommy and daddy for an extended period of time, making friends, following the rules, and learning. Kindergarten can be one of the most amazing times for your multiples. Here are some things to know before sending your kids off to school:
Twins and the Classroom
Do you have your children in the same class or different ones? What are the pros and cons to either situation?
What’s most common is this – one twin will thrive, and the other will be less comfortable being independent. Your twins have different personalities, so how they handle being apart from each other in the classroom will differ. Test out your twins and see how they handle being separated, before you decide whether or not to split them up. It may help make your decision easier to see how they handle it.
One New York Times article called “Born Together, Raised Together” from 2006 addresses these issues.
Parents of twins and triplets often argue that the bond between such children is intense and thus privileged. Some believe that separation during the early years for siblings who may insist on sharing a bedroom or dressing alike poses unnecessary anxiety. Some simply maintain that their twins and triplets are happier and more confident when they are with one another rather than apart and are, consequently, abler learners and better friends to those around them.
As the article explains, research proves that twins who are separated tend to be more anxious and emotionally distressed. But, this might not be the case for your twins.
Prepare your twins for either situation – but regardless, do encourage them to make friends on their own. It’s important socially for them to break away from one another, especially in kindergarten when they should be most explorative in their experiences. The key is to foster uniqueness and individuality, and why can’t this be done from the same classroom?
We’d love to see what reader experience has led to!
What if one twin learns faster than the other?
This is more common than one would think. Learning disabilities can be more common in twins than in single children, especially in boys. There’s a big debate regarding whether parents should hold one twin back and let the other one continue, or should they delay the start of kindergarten all together until both twins are ready. From what we’ve read, the responses are all over the map. Some say yes, do what’s best for them academically, while others disagree completely, that it would hurt the relationship between the twins, and only make competition even worse. So, talk to your twins, talk to your school administrators, to see what your options are. Babycenter.com and CircleofMoms.com are great places to chat with other parents about these sorts of issues.
The Kindergarten Experience
A recent article on Boston.com shares that kindergarteners are developing more self-confidence issues now than ever before, all due to standardized testing and regiments in early education curriculum. When students are told at the age of 5 or 6 they “aren’t proficient”, it majorly lowers their confidence levels and may discourage them from trying harder.
Pressure? This is kindergarten, the happy land of building blocks and singalongs. But increasingly in schools across Massachusetts and the United States, little children are being asked to perform academic tasks, including test taking, that early childhood researchers agree are developmentally inappropriate, even potentially damaging
Kids are being told they are inadequate before they can even grasp what that even means. And it’s ruining a pivotal time in their development. Being able to explore, innovate, create, with no holds bard is one of the most amazing skills one can learn. It fosters creative thinking in the long run, leading kids towards more creative jobs. Without creative thinkers, we wouldn’t be where we are today. Cars? The internet? The computer? The iPad?! So who wouldn’t want their kids to invent something life-changing? You never know, it might all begin with the skills they learn in kindergarten.
Check out the full article here, and for some more encouraging words for why Kindergarten is so important, read this article:
“All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten”
Says it all, doesn’t it?
Category: Parenting Advice, TwinLife Baby, TwinLife Parent
Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
