Opinion for Today

Got any topics you think I should expound on, hmmmm? Sometimes this assignment can be hard, just coming up with the topic. I'm sure I have an opinion on anything you can come up with for me to use. LOL

How about this? I teach the 10 years kids at church. Two of the kids are fraternal twin sisters and couldn't be more different if they tried. For some reason people like to compare them just because they were born on the same day and shared a womb for 9 months. Why is that? They are two separate children and just like you don't expect siblings born two years apart to be the same, why expect it from twins? Even identical twins have different personalities and preferences. I don't see why children should feel a competition between themselves so is it our expectations and opinions that shape them that way? Do we make them that way because we are constantly comparing and saying, "this twin is dominant." and Twin A reads better than Twin B or Twin B is more cuddly and Twin A is more independent?

We help shape the personality of the children we come in contact with by how we interact and respond so we are somewhat responsible for sibling rivalry. At the same time each child has different needs and we can't always help one child without letting another perceive that "Mommy spends more time with little Janie because she needs help reading so she must love her more." Instead of, "Right now Mommy is helping Janie because she doesn't read as well as I do and she needs help while I don't. Love has nothing to do with it."

It's good for children to have different strengths and weaknesses. They learn to help each other and how to compensate when things don't go quite the way they want things to go. To expect two separate kids to excel in the same things is ludicrous whether born on the same day or years apart. Real life just works that way.