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As parents, you may need to look at what you are expecting of your children and make sure it is realistic for their age and stage of development. Expecting your two-year-olds to sit at the dinner table for a long period of time is unrealistic and will inevitably cause unwanted behaviour.
Often children misbehave for a reason. Reasons may be due to hunger, tiredness, frustration, anxiety or attention seeking.
It is important to remember that twins, triplets and more are individual people. Lots of behaviour issues can come from them wanting to find their own identity and not always wanting to be labelled as the ‘twins’ or the ‘triplets’.
There will also be times when your children show undesirable behaviour as this is how they test boundaries and learn.
It’s the job of parents to try and understand why children are displaying unwanted behaviour and provide strategies to try and prevent it before the behaviour takes place. By identifying these you are halfway to being able to prevent the misbehaviour or to help children be able to deal with them in a more positive way.
We have tips to understand why they're displaying unwanted behaviour and provide strategies to prevent it.
As parents it is very easy to get wrapped up the negative points however by rewarding the children when they are playing nicely by going to play with them and give them the attention they are often craving means they will not associate having to misbehave to get our attention. A good habit to get into telling your children what behaviour you want to see, for example “that was a great way you held my hand as we crossed the road.”
When praising your children be specific, rather than “good girl” tell them why they were good, “Good girl you tidied up your toys” labelling the behaviour you want to see.
There will be times when your twins, triplets and more show undesirable behaviour as this is how children test boundaries and learn. When dealing with these issues it is very important to make sure you are consistent with your approach. This means your children are less likely to continue to push the boundaries as they know what the outcome will be.
Common unwanted behaviour includes fighting, biting, pinching, tantrums and the inability to share.
When dealing with all these issues make sure you remain calm. You need to show your children how to behave and be a positive role model. Before you deal with any issues try to find out what has happened, remember your expectation for example if your 2 year old has bitten their sibling it is important to remember that this is a very normal age and stage development and should be dealt differently to if your 5 year old has bitten someone.
If you want to learn more about how to be a more positive parent and managing unwanted behaviour please sign up to our Parenting and Behaviour online course. It is aimed at parents of multiples between the age of 1-8 and looks at common behavioural problems and ways you can handle them. For details and dates please visit the Courses page.
Also if you have a specific problem you are really struggling with you can contact our helpline, Twinline, and we will be happy to discuss it with you.