How to Teach Your Twins to Share

With twins in the house a big point of contention will be sharing.

The easy way for you as the parent would be to get two of everything.

However, this surely won’t work all the time and definitely doesn’t build character. And as we all know, your job as a dad, of course, is to “build character.” Right?

One key to a peaceful and happy home is teaching your twins how to share from a very early age.

Turn Timer

One trick that worked for us was the turn timer.

We used a portable egg timer as the “turn timer”. When our girls would fight over something we’d pull out the timer, declare that it was so-and-so’s turn now and that it would be the other’s turn when the timer went ding.

Over time, our girls got used to this pattern and even started to self-regulate with their own turn timer by declaring in a loud voice, “Ding. My turn.”

Distract

If taking turns isn’t going as smoothly as you’d like, then try the old distraction technique. Say, “Hey, look at that!” or pull out another toy or delicious food item to distract the sad, I-didn’t-get-what-I-want twin.

Wait a Minute

Especially when your twins are young, their attention span is extremely short. This means two things: First, set the turn timer for a very short time. Second, don’t be surprised if the item they were fighting over is discarded and your twins have moved on to something else rather quickly.

The good news about sharing is that typically, your twins will be sharing better and earlier when compared to other singletons their same age.

Picture by Nate Davis