Home Educating With Twins in the Game

I don’t know why God answered my prayer for twins – twice! I guess he deals with each of us differently. Sometimes he withholds his hand, and sometimes he surprises us with a direct response. I was desperately hoping baby number two would turn out to be to be twins. When we had the first scan, I remember watching the screen and then the amazement and astonishment of seeing one little head followed by another. I already knew when the sonographer said, “well I have some news for you”! A number of months later, my teeny tiny boy-girl twins were born. They spent their first few weeks in special care before we brought them home to my very surprised twenty-month-old boy.

 

It was a busy time! The first six months of “life with twins” are a hazy blur of sleepless nights, the 2012 Olympics and an inquisitive toddler.

Fast forward six years and two little girls later, I was expecting again and secretly hoping for twins once more. I wanted to relive the joy of having two little babies and to make sure that I remembered it this time round! Imagine my joy when the sonographer said “is this your first scan?” followed by “there are two in there”! Two very little, non-identical baby girls arrived a number of months later and we had seven children under eight…including two sets of twins!

 

My younger set of twins hit six this year and I no longer have any children in the 0-5 category. I like to reflect and distil principles and since I think I have as much reason as anyone to pull out some principles for raising young twins then here are my top three:

 

I deliberately avoided scouring the internet for advice on raising twins. My guess would be that it sounds something like the advice people gave me, “they will be so dependent on one another that they won’t be able to function when they are separated later on in life”.

 

As with all my other children, I have intentionally chosen to regard birth order as ordained by our heavenly Father who has numbered the hairs on my children’s heads (Luke 12:7). Each position in the line-up is according to his perfect timing and loving care and we can choose to dwell on perceived negatives, or we can praise God for the bonuses of each position.

My prayer is that my twins will be buddies for life. I imagine that if one goes to university or if one marries before the other, there probably will be a feeling of loss and sadness. However, this is only true because a deep relationship was had in the first place. We always miss true friends. I think it is a bad argument to say that twins must always be separated for fear they will miss one another later on in life. Of course, we encourage other friends and relationships, but we do not prevent them from growing close to each other when their natural choice is to spend time together.

The reason that twins are stereotypically regarded as naughty is because there are two of them and they often run in different directions! Mum deals with one child and then perhaps runs out of energy to deal with the second child!

However, God cares when we so much as provide a cup of cold water for his little ones (Matthew 10:42) and responsible mothers know that they have to work extra hard with twins in the game. There are no two ways about it. There may be a few short-cuts we can take but as a general rule, we are still waking through the night for two, changing nappies for two, spooning purees into two mouths, washing clothes for two and mopping up tears for two. If we do not rise to the challenge, then life will pretty quickly descend into chaos. The Christian mother has the advantage here since her strength is in the Lord and his ever-present help means that tiredness does not have to give way to grumpiness, and actions on repeat do not have to give way to boredom.

 

Twins are the best evidence I know that dividing children into different classes according to age is a futile exercise. I must admit that I thought I could pair my twins up and teach them together. My first set of twins blew my expectations to smithereens from the get-go. One child grasped numbers from day one whilst I had to completely abandon maths with the second for about six months because it was clearly a pointless pursuit. Several years later, their maths “position” is reversed! Today one child has a prolific vocabulary and is extremely artistic and expressive. The other child deals better with method and accuracy. One has some clear dyslexic traits, the other has no problem in the spelling department.

 

At age six, my girl twins have already separated out academically. One learned to read much faster and is probably about five months “ahead” in Maths. The other has beautiful handwriting and spends hours and hours copying history passages into any little empty exercise books she can find. One is an extrovert who never likes to be alone and the other loves to spend time by herself doing puzzles and listening to audiobooks.

 

I often reflect on the fact that if twins cannot learn at the same rate, even at the very beginning, then bunching thirty children together on account of their age is an exercise in pragmatism and little else.

 

Twins (as with all babies) arrive from the hand of the King. He ordains the number of their days (Psalm 139:16) and he ordains the circumstances of their arrival. He also ordains the mothers who are to raise these little ones. When I reflect on the years I have spent raising twins, the overwhelming note of my thoughts is one of thankfulness. Just as I could not have ordained their arrival, nor could I have found the strength to care for them and nurture them apart from the Lord.

“…your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” (Psalm 139:14)