I believe having twins gives me the distinct advantage of teaching my child how to share… daily. But, it also gives me the distinct disadvantage of fighting two-year olds every. single. day. There is a lot of crying and whining and screaming and pushing and shoving sometimes in this house by some certain little girls. It’s to be expected, and look something like this:
Alison wanting a turn… |
But, what we have found very helpful is introducing the concept of taking turns. When Dad is throwing one of them into the air and the other is begging to be tossed next, we simply say, “It’s Lisa’s turn right now, your turn is next.” and it really seems to calm Alison down. In fact, they now are beginning to anticipate their turns, as well as respect that it’s not their turn right now. It is amazing!
Monday night I had the girls help me make cookies in the kitchen. I had Lisa help me stir a few times, and then she stopped, and said “Ali’s turn” and then moved aside to let her sister have room to stir! It was adorable.
In fact, using the idea of turns has hindered tantrums, or stopped ones in progress. And when all else fails, and they continue to fight, we take the object away from both of them, explaining that if they can’t be nice and take turns and share then neither of them gets to play with it. If they are fighting over taking turns over something non-object, like piggy-back rides, then we simply say that there are no more turns, and that we are all done, that Mommy (or Daddy) are tired and are all done doing that activity. They don’t always like when Mommy’s arm cannot throw them up into the air one more time, or when Mommy doesn’t want to keep twirling and spinning round and round with them, but Mom gets dizzy and sore and needs a break sometimes! And they will just have to learn that their are other people involved and to mind their feelings as well as their own.
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