OK, I'm not always proud of my behavior with my twin 8-year-old boys.

Some days, I walk away thinking, "Well, that was straight out of the How To Decrease Self-Esteem In Your Kids With Bad Communication handbook." I have, on occasion, done every single thing I'm about to encourage you not to do.

Why listen to me, you wonder? Because I'm a parent of twins and we have to stick together. Also, I have a Ph.D. That means I have spent a great portion of my life listening to people who are a lot smarter than I so I can pass their wisdom on to you.

Now with feeling

Kids of all ages appreciate adults who help them express and label their emotions. Feelings can be either scary and burdensome or become roads to self-understanding.

Twins can mirror and amplify each other's positive and negative feelings and the result can be overwhelming to any parent. When we try to understand our twins' feelings, their feelings gradually become more under their control, to their and our benefit. In addition, we develop children who are in touch with what they need and know how to get it.

For example, I have observed that my guys start acting like they're on caffeine and steroids when I tell them to get ready for bed. It's as if they decide to start cramming in all the fighting and teasing they didn't get to earlier in the day, once bedtime is announced.

This can be a problem, because bedtime is not my finest hour. I have to struggle not to become the drill sergeant in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket. "You wanna know what's gonna happen if you aren't in that bunk in five minutes? Move it! Move it! Move it!"

Bedtime goes better when I take a deep breath and empathize with their desire to stay up. This version goes something like:

"I know it's really hard to get ready for bed. You guys still really want to play and it's not fun going to sleep. If you're both in bed in ten minutes I'll read for an extra ten minutes."

Staying empathic, while keeping them on track of the goal, makes things go more smoothly. Also, I like myself better, afterwards.

Are they listening?

Half of the time we want our twins to do things they don't want to do. Get dressed, remove the pencil from your brother's ear, come inside, take the cat food out of your mouth. Twins of all ages can be difficult when we want them to stop having fun and shift to something less rewarding.

Russell A. Barkley, director of Psychology and professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center recommends that parents use the following steps to elicit cooperation: a) Eliminate distraction b) Offer incentives c) Set time limits d) Monitor the activity and e) Offer praise. Let's look at these more closely.

• Eliminate distraction. Frequently, this is the other twin. When I want Max to get his shoes on while Daniel is telling him a fascinating story of how their pet rat ate a snail, I need to get Daniel occupied away from Max. Young twins should be given a separate activity like playing with a toy, drawing a picture, or something to occupy them in the other room.
• Offer an incentive if it's done within a certain time frame. Young twins are like puppies, motivated by something yummy to eat. As they grow older and can defer gratification, motivate them by offering points towards some larger goal (like getting to tie dad to the time out chair for 30 minutes).
• Set a time limit for each task. "I'd like you to pick up the toys that you played with today in the next 10 minutes. Thank you."
• Stay in the room to monitor the activity. We often need to observe the tasks we want our twins to do or they'll become distracted by each other or some other temptation.
• Praise, praise, praise. When your twins do things that you like, be sure to tell them. Your words of praise are like gold to them. "I really like how you started doing that right away without my reminding you." Or, "Look at what a great job you're doing cleaning up your blocks. I didn't know you could do that so fast." (Then pray you get at least 30 minutes before the blocks are back out and scattered across the floor!)

Living in the land of negativity

I don't think there's anything as overwhelming as my twins when they're joining forces in a combined tantrum, complaining, or crying jag. Exploring our twins' negative feelings isn't always easy. Sometimes it can feel like their feelings will go away more quickly if we deny or minimize them. And at those times, we really want those feelings to go away quickly!

Faber and Mazlish, authors of How To Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk say that minimizing, advice giving or criticizing children's negative feelings usually makes matters worse. "The more you try to push a child's unhappy feelings away, the more he becomes stuck in them. The more comfortably you accept the bad feelings, the easier it is for kids to let go of them."

Recently, a father complained to me that he can't get his twins to stop fighting. "They fight all of the time. I feel like I've got the toddler version of the World Wrestling Federation playing in my living room every day."

Rivalry and fighting between the kids can sometimes dominate the twin household. Unless somebody's being hurt or is about to be hurt, it's good to ignore day-to-day normal bickering.

Examples of normal bickering are low-key disagreements regarding toys, games, etc., or whose turn it is to pet the dog. In general, normal bickering teaches twins to negotiate and manage conflict.

If, however, somebody's name-calling or getting hurt, the parent needs to intervene quickly and firmly. Twins should be separated at those times and a time out may be necessary for children who are not able to stay in control.

Barkley recommends that time outs last one to two minutes per age of child. Thus a 2-year-old would get two to three minutes, a 4-year-old, four to five minutes, etc.

Watch out for burnout

We're the most likely to say something dumb to our kids when we're exhausted or stressed out. So many of us burn out with the belief that taking time away from our twins is selfish.

Our kids, however, can't monitor whether we're taking adequate care of ourselves. Their job is to extract as much as they possibly can from us.

As one parent put it, "I guess it's like when the stewardess tells you to put the oxygen mask over your mouth first, then your kids' after that. You have to be sure you have enough air so you can help yourself and them."

So make sure you're getting enough down time as a couple and as an individual. Parenting twins takes a lot of oxygen!

© Copyright 2000-2006 Joshua Coleman.

Dr. Joshua Coleman is an internationally known expert in parenting, couples, families, and relationships. He has appeared on ABC 20/20, Good Morning America, The Today Show (Australia), the BBC, and numerous news programs. His advice has been featured in numerous publications around the world. Dr Coleman serves on the training faculty of the San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group. He is the author of two critically acclaimed books The Marriage Makeover: Finding Happiness in Imperfect Harmony and The Lazy Husband: How to Get Men to Do More Parenting and Housework. For more information about his services, visit Dr. Coleman's website.

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