Twin mix up...what to do?

[Twinlife2]

For context, my girls are 4 and started school in September. Their teacher has asked a few times how to tell them apart (never me, either my husband or their grandparents when picking them up). This question always makes me feel uncomfortable as if people can stand there and scrutinise their faces to pick out defining features and I worry that these conversations will lead to insecurities in the future.

They aren't identical but admittedly do look similar. To the point, my daughter had an accident form handed to her with her name on it but it wasn't her who had had the accident, it was my other daughter. (It was a lunchtime supervisor who had filled in the form).Fair enough, it does happen. But when my daughter tried to tell the teacher that it hadn't happened to her, the teacher was dismissive and insisted it belonged to the wrong daughter. (They will always tell people who they are and not want to be mixed up).

It's parents evening soon and I'm wondering whether I should bring this up. Am I overreacting for thinking she should have been listened to?

I'm totally new to navigating this at school and any advice would be much appreciated. Thank you!

We've never dressed them the same and do have different hairstyles etc for school.

They were dressed differently as it was non-uniform day! We've always embraced their individuality, hence why they correct people when they're mixing them up. They won't answer for each other.

Oh fgs, people aren't standing there to make your children feel bad. They are literally doing what you are complaining about- trying to figure out who's who!

It's up to you to make them different in some way, bags, hair ties etc.

How do you think teachers tell any children apart? By looking at them, they're not making a judgement on a child's attractiveness they're just telling a roomful of small.children apart . They probably have 10 little girls in reception with bobbed brown hair and mentally go 'Molly - wavy eyebrows, Evie - yellow bobbles, Ava - round face, Amy - small mouth' etc etc until they know them without even looking. You're way overthinking.

If this keeps coming up why haven't you (I mean you and husband) thought of a way to manage it? Different coloured plastic bracelet that they wear every day? Blue for Beatrice, Red for Ruby or their favourite colours if there's a fun way, a random one if not.

I had similar things happen with mine years ago. I sent one with a cardigan, one with a sweatshirt, green hair scrunchy for one, red for the other, they were still mixed up.
The girls looked slightly different and you could see the difference if they were together but if you came upon one on their own, it was easy to get them muddled up.
I wanted them to have name badges but the reception teacher said that it would make them feel "different". Well of course they are different, there's 2 that look the same!
One of them got told off in high school for not doing something she'd been told to do but it was the other twin, and the teacher didn't believe she had a twin and was lying. twin 1 went and got twin 2, walked up to teacher and said, see here's my twin, teacher was so embarrassed.
I think you should bring it up as it's so easy to get them muddled up and teachers not believing them. Start as you mean to go on.

P.s. one handy thing being very similar (and I didn't find out for years) the little buggers took exams for each other, none of the teachers noticed!

My daughter did and wasn't listened to.

That's really the issue I've got. They were not even dressed the same as it was non-uniform day.

As a twin mother I have to ask, are you sure they are fraternal?

Like have they been tested? 2 placentas does not equal fraternal. Something like 20% of identical twins get their own placenta.

Just because you the family can tell them apart doesn’t make them fraternal. If they don’t have something really clear like different eye or hair colour and everyone else can’t tell them apart, perhaps it’s time to get them tested.

Also, just dress them differently/do their hair differently/ put name bracelets on them colour code them etc. it isn’t that hard.

I have sons two years apart, who don't even look that similar, and are very different heights.

Regularly school staff will call one of them by the other ones name. They just laugh about it.

Your daughters are really young and the teachers are learning lots of new children's names etc.

For this year, until everyone gets to know them give them different hair ribbon colours or something to help people tell them apart.

As a teacher the only way I can tell twins apart until I get to know them is to look for physical differences. Isn't that how we tell everyone apart in life?

With twins it's often, one has a mole the other doesn't or a slightly different face shape, or is slightly taller.

That was going to be my advice. Basically colour code them. I had identical twins in my senior class at school and honestly I couldn’t tell them apart. Some do have slight differences but it’s hard when they look so alike.

And the accident form thing, it's not really that big a deal, it was just a mistake. If it keeps on happening then address it, but not for a one off

It's a bit of a non issue that's easily fixed tbh...with regular different coloured clips/bands/ties like others have suggested. I think you'd look silly if you brought it up op.

I would definitely mention it. I have one twin in my class and their sibling in another class and there is only one letter difference in their names too. One of them was injured at playtime and I had to explain several times to the person who recorded it that it was not the child in my class but the other one who was injured.

All of you are missing the point here. A child advocated for herself and it was IGNORED. This is wrong. I don't give flip how the OP is dressing or not dressing them, this is 1000% on the school.

OP, complain. Your children have voice and it shouldn't be ignored. You are in the right here.

If their names start with different letters put different coloured hair bands/clips in a colour that starts with that letter.

That's what I did.
polly - pink
yasmin - yellow

no point just using diff colours on each as they still won’t remember who is who.

They are looking for a strategy they can use long term to get to know the girls apart i really don't think this is unreasonable. Just put different colour clips in their hair with an agreed code of which one wears which.
You are definitely overthinking this and im saying this as a twin who spent all of infants with teachers trying to tell me an my twin apart 🤣🤣🤣

A busy teacher was half listening to a child. It's unfortunate but not a big deal.

It may have been dinner staff issuing bump notes rather than the teacher anyway who have even less chance to get to know the children.

I would chat to the teacher about differences that make the girls easily identifiable and ask it be shared with all staff who work with them, including dinner staff.

I do this all the time when I've taught siblings. The wrong name just pops out sometimes even though they look nothing alike. I do it as a parent all the time too. I'm human!

Sympathies OP but I agree with PP nobody is trying to make your DDs feel bad. Although not listening to them is an issue.
My DS has a set of twins in his class and when they were younger he always had trouble distinguishing them but he said he knew by their shoes and then one started wearing glasses which made it easier - until he broke them and was glasses-less for a while. He said the teachers ALWAYS got them mixed up but they just corrected them - as your DDs do. Now they're in year 6 they have become more individual in how they dress one has long hair and the other has his short - so I can definitely tell them part now as their teachers can no doubt.

Thankfully mine were in different classes. Presume this isn’t an option op?

YANBU. They're not identical, they're just like any other siblings except the same age. Sounds like staff are being lazy, insisting black is white, and not bothering to learn their faces properly, IMO.

People had difficulty telling my younger sister and I apart. We weren’t twins. Dsis and I thought it was hilarious because we didn’t think we looked that much alike. People would ask us if we were twins. We’d say no. Sometimes we weren’t believed.

However, for me, one of the issues was that the hairdresser always cut our hair the same. When we got older we were free to insist on our own individuality.

Maybe take your dds to the hairdresser separately to choose what style of haircut they want. They might make individual choices. Or they might not and that’s ok too.

I have identical twin daughters and at the start of school they experienced this too. I'm sorry you're going through this is as it's incredibly frustrating for both you and for the girls too.

As for the accident form then as a teacher myself too I'd see that as a pretty major safeguarding fail which certainly does need raising with the head so that in the event of a more serious incident they won't be mixed up.

They learned pretty quickly to assert themselves and develop their own personalities and identities to make it patently clear which one they were. They learned to correct their teachers and other students every time it happened. Every. Single. Time. And to roll their eyes and sound tired and bored and fed up with having to repeat it. 😆

School will get the message eventually!

You understand that there needs to be something consistently different, right? Eg you will know it's Jessica because she wears a blue bow in her hair every day, and Marie wears red. The fact it was non uniform day and they were dressed completely differently isn't particularly helpful, I mean it's good that you encourage their individuality, but it won't necessarily help with the issue of people telling them apart.