Teacher can't tell my twins apart

[twinsufficient]

My twin daughters have just gone into year1. From the start of the year the teacher has found it impossible to tell them apart. She came up with the idea of one of them wearing a pink hair grip but inevitably the same dt doesn't always want to wear it! Anyway, they came home yesterday and told me that the teacher was going to put name stickers on them. I'm not happy with this as I feel that she will just look at the name label and not try and learn the differences in their faces. Also, it is making them different from everyone else in the class.

Furthermore I am also annoyed that the teacher has only put one twin in dance club even though both wanted to do it as I feel it's to make her life easier. This would have been fair enough if it was down to a ballot but it seems like positive discrimination - we've already got one twin we don't need anymore! Twin mums out there how have you dealt with these issues?

It's going to be hard to see shoes - it needs to be something on their head or upper torso that can be used to tell them apart, especially in the first few weeks and months. What kind of uniform do they wear - can you keep them consistently different e.g. Cardigan vs jumper, polo shirt vs blouse

I still can't tell my identical twin cousins apart and they are 34!!! It's very early in the new school year, give her a chance to get used to their differences. I'm sure a name sticker for a few weeks won't be too bad. If they still need it after a little time, then you might have to look at the issue again.

I think you're being a bit precious. Surely the most important thing is that they ARE identified correctly and treated as X and Y, rather than just 'one of the twins'? If I had 30 children's names to remember and teach and get to know I wouldn't want to have to check under the desk to see what shoes two otherwise identical children were wearing! As the year progresses I'm sure the teacher will learn the subtle differences, but in week two I really think this is too much to ask.

I like the idea of the initial on the uniform collar, not so so different they would stand out, but different enough that the teacher could glance if she was unsure.. Would also help with sorting the washing!!
Maybe keep 2 plain for photo days and have the rest done?

Also, remember its not just their teacher who will have problems identifying them - its other members of staff and other children too. If it was me, I think I'd order them some snazzy name badges, so its not just a sticky label stuck on them each day scrawled with a marker pen.

Could you order hair bands with their names on it, if you don't want labels?
A few of the girls at DC school wear them, you get lovely sparkly ones.

Dns are identical twins and ever since they started nursery one has had a fringe.

DD is friends with 2 identical twins if you see one alone you haven't a clue which one it is unless her hair is up and you can see a mole near her ear!!!! If they are both together then you can after looking at both hazzardaguess tell which one it is but by them they have run off . Neither wanted shorter hair and neither wanted a fringe or other things. In the end it was hair ties - they chose the colour and stuck to it. For school anything they wore in their hair was either purple or red.... Now they are 8 and I must say I still resort to a hello X and X and when its one alone its a Hi !!!!

There were lovely twin boys in DD's reception class and their Mum embroidered their first initial onto their school jumpers. Within weeks their classmates and their teachers were able to identify who was who.

But give the teacher a bit of a break, they've got a lot of faces to learn at the moment, so I'm sure they'd welcome a helping hand at first.

As a teacher, I always managed to tell twins apart after a couple of weeks, even if it took a while.
But actually a name badge helped enormously. (or a pink hair clip, or whatever)

If you talk to one twin, and are not 100% sure which one, then her characteristics and face don't get linked to one name. If you talk to her and you KNOW it is DT1, then you associated the name and the face/mannerisms. Then after a week or two, you find you don't look at or need the identifier/name tag.

The easiest thing is to make sure their hair is different, one in a pony tail, one in a plait. It doesn't have to be the same each day, just so at the beginning of the day the teacher can say to herself, ok DT1 has the bunches, and then for that day she is sorted.

If there isn't a uniform dress them differently.

I've taught a few pairs of identical twins and it is very hard when they are dressed the same. The mothers are usually very co-operative and help out by dressing them differently or a different hairstyle.

Try to help solve the problem instead of moaning.

My BF from school has identical twin boys. They are now 12 and I still struggle to tell them apart visually unless they are next to each other. Their personalities are different, so once talking it is OK! I do try, but it is HARD!

Cut the teacher (and other adults/children in the school) some slack and come up with a way of them telling them apart easily.

I think the uniform does make this extra hard, so other cues that are helping people store the faces out of school eg dtd1 is in red today, dtd2 seems to like hello kitty tops or whatever are missing.

Have the children complained (other than about the dance class)? If they haven't, then you are worrying over nothing. If they have, then you need to explain to them that, because they are very alike, people need a way to distinguish between them. I'm sure they'd prefer to be called by the right names, even if it means having a label, or something less obvious like a bracelet.
I don't think different shoes would help, because they probably have their feet under a table for quite a lot of the time.

If it makes you feel any better, my DSis and I were always getting confused - and we're 18 months apart! We look alike, but aren't identical. She got the worst of it because she was second. Teachers were always calling her by my name - I think that's quite common though.

I always dressed my twins in different versions of the school uniform. They never had the same shoes as the shoe shop never had much choice so you took what fitted, and their feet have never been quite the same. One had a fringe and the other a pony tail.

We started doing this after the rising 5s leader at playgroup asked if their was something I could do - she looked so terrified at the prospect of not being able to tell them apart!

The only problem we had was when one teacher chose one to work with a very special dance group and the other was excluded as she had decided to separate them, and I had to deal with the fallout .

At high school there was no choice with uniform. They were in separate classes, but this did not always help as the teacher would teach one class, then wonder why one person had not gone away and was in the next class..... One got cornered by the music teacher for not turning up to a band rehearsal that she wasn't in and withstood the onslaught, saying 'but I'm not XXXX' until he gave in and found out she was a twin. He did apologise, though.

I took my inspiration from Janet Walton, of sextuplets fame, who thought it very important to foster individuality from the start. Mine are now at different universities doing different degrees. One is about to spend a year abroad, one has a boyfriend. They adore each other, visit each other regularly and never fall out (more than 5 minutes, anyway!) They do bicker, though - it is embarrassing, like being with an old married couple who 'wash their dirty laundry in public' We did talk about it and they have improved a lot since living apart.

I feel really sorry for the teacher. A friend of mine had twin sisters and I could never tell them apart. I'd just agree to the stickers as a temporary thing to help her. Or come up with a suggestion of your own.

I know twin boys who have always had a colour. One has blue the other has red. From coats to bags to bike helmets etc. Not sure how is works at school though.

I had twin girls in my class at Primary and one always had a ponytail and the other had bunches.

I agree with others that you need to help, or accept the labels. The labels show that the teacher is trying to tel lthem apart.

There are two sets of identical twins in my ds1's class! I've known them all for five years now, and still can't tell each set apart. One child from one set has a mole on his cheek but you can't always see it from the wrong angle, and the other set are utterly identical, though one has quite a noticeable speech impediment. There's also a set of twins in ds2's class who are also completely identical, but they often have different haircuts and wear different coloured glasses.

I have identical twin nephews who I see on a fairly regular basis. When they were small I found it almost impossible to tell them apart without really studying them hard. My DSis dressed them differently to make life easier (so school uniform would have been a nightmare!) and quite often I would just call one of them and see who turned round and then remember what they were wearing so I could get their names right.

Now they are in their late teens the differences are much more noticeable as they have developed their own styles and their personalities come out more.

It's a lot easier for a mum to identify a twin than someone who is unrelated.

I'm a teacher, I find twins difficult. Always have, although I try my best. In secondary it's not such a problem as they are in different classes but there have been some who could have played the switcheroo trick on me and I would not have noticed.

You need to help the teacher out. I had twin friends at school. No teacher could tell them apart, they often swapped classes for fun. My brothers are twins and used to get called an amalgamation of both their names eg SteveMark come here. I also now have friends who are twins and they get called the same abbreviated name (eg Belinda and Beatrice both get called Bee) but this is not a nickname they chose, it is given by people who can't tell them apart. Lots of find twins difficult and you need to help out. I do a hobby with 20 people, one set of twins. Only two of us can tell the twins apart and they are referred to as the twins. Do you want this for your daughters??? You need to help otherwise they will be seen as one entity. A name badge is fine for a little kid to start off with.

My DD is 6 and her best friends are very identical twins. It's taken me a year to know the difference...not everyone is good with faces. their Mum puts a thin plait in the hair of one twin on the right side and the other has one on the left...the twins do not get a say about it.

In secondary it's not such a problem

I found secondary worse in some ways. They were rarely muddled physically, as far as I know anyway. Although they were in different classes, if the same teacher taught both classes, even though they were different children, they often could not see any difference in them. At parents evenings (a logistical nightmare!) we would sometimes get a combined report , or others would use the separate appointments properly and try really hard to give an honest report of each one (which sometimes was the same anyway, but the effort much appreciated).

In some ways, being taught together helped the teacher see the differences, but that is only in comparison to their twin, rather than being an individual IYSWIM. However, a drama teacher, who was probably one of only 2 people to teach them together, and who you would have expected to be more socially aware/observant, gave the most combined and weird report ever . It is a complete minefield.

You do have to do what you can to help the teachers. It is the best thing to do, but does not always work!

Can't all the class wear labels until, say, half term?

i think you should get them different haircuts if theyre completely identical.