Twin sons reacted totally differently to school

[MissWilde]

Before starting school, both of my DTSs were looking forward to it. However, on the first day DSa trotted in quite happily whilst we had tears from DSc who needed a lot of persuading to go in. I assumed that they would both be fine as they had each other, obviously I was wrong. Anyway after their first morning they were both quite upbeat about it. Next day was the same story. DSa is the more independent of the two and was quite happy to leave me but DSc was still quite anxious to leave me. When I went to pick them up DSc was saying how DSa had left him out all day and made new friends whilst he was left on his own. When we got home they both started playing on their own rather than together. Is this normal when starting school? They have always been so close and now aren't playing together at all. What should I do?

P.S C and A are there initials and that's how I've refered to them

I dont have twins so I wont pretend that I have any sort of idea of what this is like. However I have now had four children go through the reception start and no 1 child is the same in my experience. I think it sounds like your dsC is in need of some support on how to handle making friends dealing with lots of people around and perhaps also practice saying " do you want to play with me?" as DsA is happy I think it might be tempting to ask him to look after C I would personally avoid this as DsA needs to settle as much as DsC does. You could however have some of the conversations about how to deal with finding friend etc with DsA around so 1 he can benefit too and 2 he might be able to offer ideas or may even on his own accord ensure that DsC gets involved in the school play ground..

have you spoken to the teacher? seen if there is this difference in class as well?
as for them not playing at home mine go through phases so you may find that too will pass.

My twins (boy / girl - very close, girl mothers boy relationship) really didn't cope well in the same class. The fall out at home was unbelieveable. We did stick at it for a while but eventually moved ds (for a lot of reasons). We are now looking at moving dd from the school and we will not even consider moving her to be with her twin brother.

All children are different just because they are twins doesn't mean they will react the same to a situation. Surely you should be happy that they have their own individual personalities. My friend went to a great deal of effort to make people aware that her twins were individuals and even got school to put them in separate classes. Once the settling in period is over why not try arranging play dates where one twin is a t a friends house and the other twin has a friend round to play and encourage the fact that they should be treated as 2 separate children with separate friends. I would just check with the teacher that the others in the class are not referring to them as "the twins", I know this upsets my boys who are 16 months apart they are quite often grouped as the "the x boys" or "the brothers" and the older one (who is less outgoing and independent) feels the younger steels his friends and limelight.

maybe I misworded that, whenIgetto3, it's not that I want them to be the same, it's the fact that DSc is struggling to fit in and seems to be left out a lot by DSa. I wouldn't have been too concerned but they are normally so close and always played together at nursery.

Good tips about helping build up his confidence with new people etc :)

My DTs are in different classes now, but were together in nursery. They settled into nursery differently - one was more confident than the other, but the one who settled more easily had her own wobbles a couple of weeks after they started.

It was the same when they started at school, in different classes. However it wasn't long before the more confident one starting wobbling again and even now (they've just gone into Y2), I will get mornings where one or the other is a bit clingy...very rarely both at the same time though - it's as if they know I can only cope with one extra-needy child at at time .

Sorry MissWilde didn't mean to be so mean

With 4 DCs (none twins) I do know that some wobble and others don't. DS2 appeared to be very settled at his new school this week and has then wobbled today saying he doesn't want to go anymore. Worked out it was just he had too much time to think about it today being Sunday and a lazy day. Maybe you need to be getting to school right at the moment they go in and not give him any time to think about it, make like a late disorganised mummy