Category Archives: School-Age

Do What I Say, Not What I Do

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I’m a big believer in teaching by example.

If I’m going to talk the talk, I need to walk the walk. If I want my children to make healthy food choices, I need to make healthy food choices myself. If I want them to treat others with compassion, I need to do that in my own life. If I want them to be honest and open with me, I need to be honest and open with them. Whether or not my children are watching me, I try to model the things I want them to learn.

The problem is that I am messy. Really, really messy. I am good at many things, but tidying is not one of them. I am so bad at putting things away that two of my friends came over to help me move in and save me from myself. While the husband took all our kids to the nearest park to play, the wife walked me through my home, telling me where to put my things.

I’m great at cleaning, but lousy at tidying. In an hour, I can leave a bathroom sparkling and germ-free. My dirty laundry doesn’t pile up. Dirty dishes in the sink? Forget it! However, my bathroom counter is cluttered. When it comes to folding clean clothes and putting them away, I’m an abject failure. My kitchen counters are covered with mail, kitchen appliances, and spice containers. My dining table has a pile of books on it. My buffet is covered with paper. I moved into my house in August, and half unpacked boxes take up half my garage. The last time my daughters had a friend sleep over, she told me that I should really clean my room.

How can I realistically expect my children to clean their room when I leave the rest of the house, inlcuding my own room, a mess?

The one area of tidiness where I am consistently successful is the containment of dirty laundry. My dirty clothes always make it into the hamper. Therefore, I feel that this is an area in which I can insist the children follow suit. They don’t, though. Their bedroom floor is littered with worn clothes.

A month ago, I laid down the law. My daughters are 6 years old and dress themselves. I think this means that they can take ownership of discarding worn clothes appropriately. I would no longer wash clothes that didn’t make it into the girls’ laundry basket. Over the last several weeks, I have pushed their dirty clothes scattered on the carpet to the side of the room instead of helping them into the basket. I’ve only washed what the girls toss in their basket.

The first thing they ran out of was pajamas. These girls LOVE their pajamas, so imagine their dismay at having to sleep in daytime clothes. (I used to make them sleep in school clothes. I’ll tell you about that another day.) Next, they ran out of sweatpants and tights. They live in sweater dresses and tights or sweatpants and T-shirts during Texas winters, so this was The End of the World.

It worked. Last Thursday, M told me that she had picked up part of the growing pile of worn clothes and moved it to the laundry basket. By the time she woke on Friday, I’d washed and folded every last item she’d taken ownership of. I placed them in the bin from which they are supposed to put their clothes away, and she dressed herself in sweatpants in deep gratitude.

My girls aren’t going to do what I say, unless I do it myself.

Now tell me: How do I teach myself to be neat so I can teach my kids?

Sadia fails to keep house in the suburbs of Austin, TX. She is a single mom of 6-year-old twin girls, and works in higher education IT. Her desk at work is disarmingly clutter-free, and her electronic folders well-organized. Her desk at home is another story.

Switcheroo

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My daughter J cried herself to sleep last night, as she had the night before.

The first night, it was because I made her go to bed without a bath after she earned a timeout. She earned the timeout for backtalk and kicking at me for asking her to take a bath. Yes, that’s exactly as circular as it sounds. Last night, the tears were because I didn’t let her finish her science homework because she remembered it (after I’d asked 2 hours earlier and she’d told me she was done) 1 minute before bedtime.

Over dinner tonight, I had to lay out our ground rules again. I’m willing to hear the girls’ opinions, but they are to listen/obey first, then talk.

We’d talked specifically about what had gone wrong last night earlier in the day, after we’d all had a chance to sleep on it. I reminded J that I’d made it very clear that both my 6-year-olds were to be in bed at 8:30, no matter what.

“You didn’t explain that properly,” she retorted. “‘No matter what’ isn’t even words!”

“I know what ‘no matter what’ means,” her twin, M, piped up helpfully from the other bed. “It means, ‘no exceptions!’”

My girls have a tendency to react to bad behaviour from Sissy by being extra-helpful and extra-cheerful. It’s actually a great arrangement from my perspective, since it means that I have only rarely had to deal with both girls crying or acting out at once. Most of the time, they’re both very good-natured and bouncy, so I’m glad they don’t get down in the dumps together.

When I go to the bottom of what was bugging J, it was concern about the next week. Spring break starts tomorrow, and the girls will be driving off with Daddy to spend the week with him in El Paso. They live with me, and this will be the longest they’ve spent with Daddy since he and I separated last April.

Tonight, it was M who cried at bedtime.

“When the overwhelmness fills my whole body,” M explained through her tears, “it makes tears come from my eyes. I’m going to miss you too much. I hate this divorce. Divorce is a ugly stupid word. I wish no parents ever fought ever and there was no word of ‘divorce.’”

J was the one to try to lighten the mood, reminding her sister of a movie they’d watched with their school counselor at ‘divorce club,’ the monthly meeting for 1st graders with divorced parents.

The nutty thing is that, until the last month or so, J has been the one completely in touch with her emotions. She’s been the one who explains to me clearly exactly how she feels about all the recent changes in her life, while M has acted out and needed a lot of help to get to the root of her worries.

This sort of role switcheroo happens all the time with my girls. One will be extremely mature and in touch with her feelings, while the other is a mess with no idea what’s bothering her. After a few days, or weeks, or months, they’ll suddenly switch roles. One will bury her nose in a book 24/7, while the other wants to play, and one day, the arguments will remain exactly the same, but with J and M reversing positions. When they were babies, M was the one who loved to be held and rocked and snuggled, while J would cry to be put down. Today, J’s the one who lists “snuggles” in the “need” column on school assignments on needs versus wants, while M tells me that my goodnight hug was “too much squishing.”

Of course, there are a lot of ways in which M and J are consistently distinct from each other. M can talk the hind leg off a donkey and just be getting started. J takes earnestness to a fine art. M is a picky, picky eater, while J is usually open to liking new things if I can convince her to try them. J has the ability to warm a stranger’s heart with one word or look, while M can leave people writhing with laughter with her wry humour.

I’m pretty sure that there’s nothing conscious about the way that J and M go about reversing roles and maintaining balance, but I can’t help thinking that the sensitivity that they’ve learned from adjusting to each others’ moods and needs will serve them well in personal and professional relationships throughout their lives.

Do your multiples switch roles?

Sadia lives and overthinks matters of parenting in the suburbs of Austin, TX. She is newly divorced and works in higher education IT. She will be at work, not at SXSW, this week. Her daughters, M and J, are identical 6-year-olds in 1st grade.

I Know I Can't Be Objective

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My 6-year-old daughters are being evaluated for the Talented and Gifted program at their elementary school. If they qualify, they’ll get to participate in more in-depth study of certain subjects than their peers. The dual language program at their school, in which they participate, already incorporates components of the Talented and Gifted curriculum, and their teachers do a great job of giving them assignments that keep them challenged and engaged. Still, I really do think that they’d benefit from the additional small group environment of TAG.

Every parent knows that their child is special. I think there are very few parents out there who’d describe their children as average, even though the average child is, well, average. I’m not even going to pretend to be objective. In my eyes, J is the sweetest, most thoughtful child to ever grace the earth. M is the funniest, and it takes every iota of self control not to spend every second of every day kissing her most kissable nose. They are both brilliant. It’s a good thing that the people evaluating them for Talented and Gifted services aren’t their parents.

But, wait.

J and M both brought forms home from school yesterday. I’m supposed to fill out these “Scales for Identifying Gifted Students” comparing them each to their age peers. Under Language Arts, one criterion is, “Reads or speaks with expression to create meaning.” Under Creativity: “Is an excellent improviser.” Leadership: “Is sought out for peers for advice, companionship, and ideas,” and “Is viewed as fair or caring.”

I cannot be objective. I just hope that the teachers reviewing these forms know that no parent can be, and are looking more at the examples I provide than the rankings.

I also struggle not to compare my girls to one another. They’re incredibly evenly matched, but J is just a little more interested in current events than M. J was the one who cried every day of the Arab Spring uprising in Libya, while M merely listened to the news and commented. M is just a bit stronger in math. While J is content to work on multiplication and calculations of area, M has leapt ahead into volumes and higher exponents. I imagine that if I were the mother of just one of them, I wouldn’t pause to mark their abilities in those areas as “Exhibits the behavior much more in comparison to his or her age peers.” I’m not the mother of just one. I’m a mother of twins, and I can’t help but compare them to each other. I know I’m not alone in this; my friends who have several singletons frequently talk about how a younger child compares to how the older one was doing at the same age.

The girls’ dad gave me the pep talk I needed soon after I photographed each page of the forms and emailed them to him. “It is important,” he wrote to me, “not to compare our daughters with each other because is it not an accurate measuring stick. For this, I think we need to try to compare them to the other children we see and are familiar with.” He talked through with me some of the areas I was waffling on, and some of the areas that he was uncertain of, not having been around the girls very often this year. He was pleased to learn that J has developed an interest in World War II, and that M is started to want to read more about Native American life before European contact.

I was pleased to have his thoughts, his perspective, and his partnership in co-parenting our children.

Of course, my ex thinks our girls are even more brilliant than I think they are.

Do you aim for objectivity in parenting? How do you achieve it?

Sadia tries to stay half a step ahead of her genius 6-year-old identical twins in Austin, TX. She is assisted in her efforts not to spend all day kissing her daughters by escaping to her full time job in higher education technology in Austin, TX. Her ex-husband is currently stationed 900 miles away with the US Army in El Paso, TX.

The Rotten Ringworm Runaround

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M snuggling her new kitten.We adopted this sweet little boy into our family in November. We also unwittingly adopted the ringworm he brought with him from the animal shelter. While our new kitten, Scout, has brought us much joy and laughter, his ringworm has brought with it a reign of tears and terror.

I’ve learned several things about ringworm:

  • Ringworm isn’t a worm. It’s a fungus. Either way, it’s nasty and gross and, like lice, something that can’t be completely avoided just by keeping a clean home and maintaining good hand-washing habits. If your child interacts with others, she runs the risk of bringing home lice; if your pet has ever been outdoors, he runs the risk of ringworm.
  • Some strains of ringworm defy all attempts at identification. Our little boy’s failed to glow under UV light and didn’t initially make his fur fall out, so the vet misinterpreted the lesion I pointed out at our first visit as a bite from another kitten at the shelter and gave the all-clear for him to interact with my kids. I should trust my gut.
  • This stuff is contagious. All three of the humans in our house had a red itchy patch or two within 3 days of the new kitten’s cuddles.
  • Washing bedsheets every night, plus vacuuming and disinfecting even a single room every day is overwhelming and all-consuming.
  • A ringworm infection to the scalp can’t be treated with topical ointments alone. My poor little J had a bald spot on her head, which I’m thankful can be hidden inside pigtails as it grows out. Our pediatrician referred us to a dermatologist, and J now has a nightly bowl of ice cream to mask the taste of the pulverized pill (griseofulvin) she has to take every day for a month.

We’ve literally been fighting this thing since November. The kitten received weekly lyme sulfur dips as well as a liquid suspension of the same meds J is now on. He’s currently completely free of ringworm, but has to stay in isolation in my bathroom. He was clear in January, too, but I made the mistake of letting him interact with the girls, and he contracted a fresh round of ringworm from them. Thankfully, our adult cats have thus far made it without become hosts for this nasty parasite.

M has developed eczema on the spots where ringworm used to reside, and J is beginning to do so too. We’re all using antifungal shampoo, just in case. I’m exhausted, and I hardly have the energy to give the kitten the attention he needs once my human children are in bed.

A pharmacy worth of medications is accompanied by a typed schedule with a column for each of 6 people and cats.I’ve trotted out a technique I used with newborn infants. I’ve written up our medication schedule and posted it by the meds.

I keep reminding myself that all this is nothing compared to what we went through after bringing our 33-week preemies home 6 years ago. The need to keep on top of a schedule and maintain a sanitary environment was much more critical then. I was getting way less sleep. I had far less experience. This ringworm stuff is child’s play in comparison.

When the girls were babies, I had a notebook in which I wrote down every diaper change and every feeding, since in my sleep-deprived state, I feared double feeding one baby and forgetting to feed the other. It also helped coordinate things between me and my husband. I’d take my notebook with me to visits with the pediatrician.

This ringworm thing? I don’t need a notebook to keep track.

This, too, shall pass.

What techniques have you developed to manage parenting multiples? How do they translate to the rest of your life?

And the Older One Is …

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J was pulled out of my body a full 2 minutes before her sister M, because it was her amniotic sac that had ruptured while M’s remained intact.

I didn’t tell the girls their birth order for 6 years. When people asked them who was older–why is that no one ever asks who is younger?–they’d simply say, “We’re same age sisters. We’re twins. No one’s older.”

Not every curious stranger was satisfied with this answer, although it did stop the majority of them from pushing for a definitive response. When I was interrogated further, I had a canned answer for my inquisitors:

I’ve avoided telling the girls who was born first, because people automatically assign birth order stereotypes to children. They expect the older one to be more mature, more responsible, sometimes even smarter. That makes sense, I suppose, for kids born at different times. I know from my own experience that being an older sibling makes you grow up and take responsibility. My children are the same age as one another. The random order in which they were removed–by C-section, mind you–from my womb shouldn’t dictate how people see them. They’ve got enough stereotypes to contend with being identical twins.

I once got a response to my spiel that got my then-husband’s blood pounding. This friend of a friend said something along the lines of, “That’s stupid. Why would anyone assign birth order stereotypes to multiples?” The girls’ dad whispered in my ear, “I dunno. Why would anyone ask what order they were born in? That’s stupid too.”

For 6 years, cute innocent answers from little girls and canned responses from mommy kept me from needing to tell M and J who had been born first. They did refer to each other as “big sister” and “little sister,” based on height differences. My daughter M tells me that the trick to telling apart the 3 sets of identical twins split between her class and J’s is that, “the shorties are all in my class.”

One day, though, my Grand Plan for Birth Order Question Response stopped working. I was distracted, filling out paperwork in a waiting room, while several garrulous women pushed J and M for an answer on who was older. I heard J say, “She’s older,” and turned to see her pointing at M.

“No,” I told her firmly. “You’re the same age. J, you came out of my belly first.”

I thought this was the beginning of the end. All the birth order stereotypes of the universe were going to descend on my daughters and smother them.

Two days later, the question came again: “Who’s older?”

J’s answered floored me: “I came out first, but we’re the same age.”

As in most matters of parenting, I needn’t have worried so much.

Do your multiples know their birth order? Are their personalities typical of the older child/younger child dynamic?

 

Sadia overthinks her parenting decisions in Austin, TX, where she takes a break from single mommyhood by going to her full time job in higher education information technology.

A preterm MoM intro

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With the new year upon us I thought I’d take on a new blogging opportunity. Let me introduce myself. My name is Carolyn and I am a mom to fraternal b/b twins, living, parenting and working in Ontario, Canada.

My twins are 2.5 years old and are spunky little men, with great personalities of their own. My guys are little for their age due to arriving at 27 weeks and challenging their parents from day one! They are amazing fighters and have come so far!

Canada offers mothers maternity and parental leave if they’ve been working enough hours leading up to the arrival of their child (ren.) I was lucky to be one of those people. I actually took 16 months off to be with my babies. The times were tough, but we made it through. There was definitely a lot of frustration and tears for everyone involved, but these little men taught us much about perseverance and developed our ability to kick adversity in the b-u-t-t time and time again.

I have been writing a personal blog coming up on 2 years about the ups and downs of my family. You can find my blog at http://twintrospectives.blogspot.ca. We also have an older boy, born at 31 weeks, who the twins love and learn so much from. These 3 boys have been our family’s inspiration.

I usually blog on the topic of prematurity and what might come afterward for others and what has evolved for my family in particular. The experience of preterm birth has given me a positive outlook on life, which might sound weird, given the fact preterm birth is the scariest thing most who go through it will ever experience. I figure if I can get through such an uncertain time, along with my family members, then there isn’t really anything else we can’t figure out. This is what I hope to be able to teach my children as I mother them and watch them grow during their childhood.

Aside from helping my own children along the way, my greatest passion is assisting new families going through the preterm birth experience, one step at a time. I have found my way into my local Multiple Births Canada (MBC) chapter, now working as a peer health worker (outreach worker,) as well as I’ve  just taken on a co-chair role in the development of MBC’s Preterm Birth Support Network.

In 4 short years my amazing little preemie men have taught me so much about life and I hope to be able to share some of what they have been teaching me with the How Do You Do It community.

Grade Placement Blues 2012, Part II

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In the first of these posts, I told you how my 6-year-old daughters’ old school failed to maintain accurate academic records for them.

In August of last year, I bought a new house. I packed up my kids, cats and household goods and moved 900 miles from El Paso, where my now ex-husband is stationed with the army,  back to the Austin area where my job and most of my friend are.

One of the first things I did was register my twin daughters, M and J, at their new elementary school. I explained their convoluted academic history to the registrar and showed her the note scribbled at the bottom of each of the girls’ transcripts: “Grades reflect 1st grade curriculum.”

The registrar made it clear that the scribble wasn’t going to solve our problems, and referred me to the school counselors. I explained to them that I wasn’t particularly attached to the idea of J and M progressing through school with kids a year their senior. My biggest concern was that they both continued to love school, and that they both learn something every day.

The counselors suggested that both J and M take a grade placement test to establish whether they were ready to enter 2nd grade at age 6. They would need to demonstrate having mastered at least 90% of the first grade curriculum to be allowed to skip a year and enter 2nd grade, which they would have done if they’d stayed in El Paso. It took only a few days to schedule the tests, and a couple more to get results.

M had qualified to enter 2nd grade in English and math, squeaking past the 90% cutoff with a 91%. She was 2 points below the cutoff for science and social studies, but the school had the right to choose to ignore those scores if they wanted. J, on the other hand, missed the cutoff with a score of 89% in math and in English.

This was déjà vu. I wasn’t about to split my twin daughters into separate grades, possibly for the rest of their school careers, without a very good reason. A 2% difference in test scores wasn’t a good reason in my eyes. Remember, a year earlier, I had caved into my now ex-husband’s desire see have our daughter J skip a grade while her sister stayed behind. The fact that the roles were reversed this time around just convinced me all the more that there was no reason to have the girls rush through school and miss out on being with kids their own age.

The counselors backed me up. They would also prefer to see M and J do first grade over again and stay with kids their own age. I had done intensive research and picked this school for them. It had a reputation of excellent teaching and valuing an individualized approach to learning. I didn’t care what their grade was called as long as J and M were safe, learning new things,  socializing with their peers, and enjoying school.

I did ask one favour. I wanted both my daughters in the dual language program. I knew that the other kids had had a year of both Spanish and English instruction in kindergarten. I figured that the disadvantage that J and M would be at because they would need to learn Spanish would be balanced out by the fact that they’d already learned the first grade material.

The Spanish-English dual language coordinator interviewed the girls. She reported that, although they had no Spanish comprehension at all, their English was strong enough that they wouldn’t stay lost for long.

I haven’t regretted for a minute letting M and J repeat first grade, although their father sees this as a major failure. He wants them to be evaluated to skip a grade again at the beginning of next year.

To my mind, school is at least as much about teaching social graces and a sense of accountability, learning to interact with peers, learning compassion and generosity, as it is about academics. The girls are flourishing in their new school, and the Spanish they’re learning will be a huge benefit to them here in Texas and in much of the world.

J captured it perfectly not long ago:

M was the only one in her class to get 100% on her science quiz! It was all in Spanish and she got 100%! When Ms C told us how well M did, I was so proud, I wept tears of joy.

Grade Placement Blues 2012, Part I

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In the autumn of 2011, when the US school year starts, I fretted over my daughters’ grade placement. To make an extra-painfully long part of this painfully long story short, after starting kindergarten with their age peers, J and M were skipped, at different points in the year, up to first grade. They started and ended their school year in the same grade as each other. For a while, though, there was a good chance that the twins would end up in different grades for the remainder of their academic careers, a prospect that made me feel a little sick.

One might think that the matter of the girls’ grade placement was resolved. They had both completed first grade with awards attesting to their all around academic excellence.  They had qualified for the 2nd grade Gifted and Talented program for this academic year. They’d carried themselves remarkably well in the face of the reality of how mean 7-year-olds can be. They’d even worked together to protect a classmate who was facing bullying.

As luck would have it, I requested official transcripts as part of my preparation for our 900 mile move. That’s when things got really ugly.

I reviewed their transcripts and began to suspect a problem. Both transcripts showed the girls as having completed kindergarten, not first grade. In retrospect, I’m glad that both sets of records had the same problem, so I didn’t have inconsistency between J’s and M’s. That might have landed me in the loony bin.

I called the school. I was referred to the registrar. I left a voicemail. After not hearing back for several days, I called back to see if there was someone else in the office who could help. I was referred to the assistant principal. I left a message in her voicemail too.

I gave up on telephonic technology and decided to play this old school. I drove down to the school and asked to see the registrar. She referred me to the assistant principal. Once I cornered her, she informed me that since the girls didn’t have placement tests on file, they had no way update their records to reflect their grade. I asked her why the placement tests weren’t on file. She told me the girls had never taken any. I reminded her that the school had conducted an extensive evaluation before recommending that J and M skip a grade. She said they didn’t include the testing piece because it involved ordering a test from the district. I reacted the way you would expect.

The girls could take the test now, she said, just to get the scores into their records. I agreed. I needed accurate transcripts for the new school district. Fortunately, M and J, like their mother, love tests. They just see them as extended puzzles. I filled out the form requesting testing twice, the form we’d never been offered before. I secured a promise that i would receive a phone call as soon as the tests arrived. I inhaled a smallish box of chocolates, then called my ex-husband to fill him in. He didn’t take it as well as I did.

Time scurried on, but I didn’t hear a peep from the school. I called to follow up, and was told that the district didn’t like to administer the tests on odd dates. Could M and J possibly sit for the test in August. Sure, I said, as long as it was before the 15th. We were moving away after that.

The end of July drew near, and I heard nothing from the school. I didn’t even mess with the phone and went in to find out what was going on. The assistant principal was on leave, I was told. I told them to find me the principal. They got me the registrar. She told me they were getting a new assistant principal.

I met with the new assistant principal before she’d had a chance to put photos of her kids on her desk. She said she’d follow up with her predecessor to find out what was going on. I asked whether I could give her what information I had. She pulled out a legal pad, grabbed a pen, and turned my Mama Bear wrath into a full page of notes. She would take care of things, she told me, and whether or not she’d made probe progress, she’d call me by Friday.

She actually called me on Friday. I began to hope that things cold be cleared up. Too soon. She apologized profusely, and herself acknowledged that had the school dotted their Is in the first place, we wouldn’t be here. However, district policy was that every application to be tested to skip a grade had to be approved by the school board, and they wouldn’t meet again until after the next school year had begun.

Fine, I told her. I surrendered. Was there any way that they could attach a letter to their official transcript explaining the situation? She agreed to do so.

To Be Continued

About school, part 1

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Our oldest started kindergarten last fall. I was rather hesitant in sending him to a full day program* after having him home with me until then. I seriously considered holding him back a year (he’s an April boy) but at the end felt it was best for him to enter the public education at that age. We spent a month in Finland at the end of September and I was glad about the break it offered to him from school.

He’s a delightful and smart kid. Kinda introvert, takes after his Daddy, but has good social skills. I knew going to school every day would likely be a challenge but I did not anticipate the crying and begging that ensued most nights. He complained the ‘day was just too long, could he just stay home?’ He was counting days until the next weekend/holiday/vacation. It was puzzling because in the mornings he would be happily skipping to the bus stop and did not even look back to wave good buy.

Both my parents were teachers. I believe in good solid education. When I had mentioned the possibility of holding him back a year my mother did not believe I was serious**. Education is important. Teachers are important. I know this. But I also know my son. I know when he’s had enough and over the  Christmas break I decided I needed to do something. Something to change the course so that in years to come he would still have that desire for learning.

I had a meeting with his teacher (what a treasure she is!) and the principal in January. I wanted to pick him up at half day once a week (making his week 3 full days, 2 half days). The principal very reluctantly agreed to a trial for 6 weeks. We’re half way through that trial. It has made a big difference. But now I want more (of course I do!). I want to go to the next meeting and request he get picked up at half day every day. I can already see the principal object to this .. because ‘his school attendance is my responsibility’, that’s what she told me at the first meeting. Honestly, I could care less about his attendance. I don’t care if he misses music, or gym, or library or the social experience or does not get to practice lining up one more time …. What I care about is his well being, his enthusiasim for learning, him getting enough time to play and rest. He is 5 years old!

I realize that I have a different mindset than most of my neighbors. But I come from Finland where kindergarten is for 6 year olds, where 1st grade is no longer than 4 hrs/day (yes you read that right) and where kids score on top of the world year after year. I am all for great education. I am not for chronic fatigue at the age of 5. Or 6. Or 7. I’m also not entirely sure how to proceed with the principal (or with my son). Would love to hear your thoughts. And if you happen to know the MA education law could you tell me what my legal rights are to pull him out at half day, please?

 

*As of past fall our town offers full day program at no cost and while not mandatory it is strictly enforced.

** This was before she realized that kindergarten was for 5 year olds and was a full day.

 

Hanna is a wife of a wonderful man, a mother of a kindergartener and 4 year old twins. They make a home in Lexington, MA. She is grateful her own parents made her get a degree in nursing before letting her move to America. 

 

Twin Accent, but No Twin Language

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A surprising proportion of people ask me whether my twin daughters ever had their own language. They didn’t.

I find myself apologizing for the girls’ lack of twinspeak, more correctly known as cryptophasia. Perhaps it was because we used Baby Sign–J and M starting signing at 7 months of age–that they didn’t need a special language with Sissy, I find myself responding. Or perhaps it was because I also spoke to them in Bengali. After all, my entire academic background is in linguistics and I write for a mother of multiples blog. I should be a fountain of cool twin language trivia.

I confess that J and M sound very alike today. I used to have no trouble distinguishing their voices, but even I get their voices confused at least once a week. I have to remind them to open their phone conversations with Daddy with a comment about who is speaking. When she gets very earnest, M tends to click her tongue before every sentence, and J takes more pauses, but hardly anyone can tell their voices apart. In fact, a friend of theirs who happens to be blind describes them as having one voice rather than distinct voices.

In recent months, I’ve been getting questions about the source of the girls’ accent.  They get comments on their accent at school too. According to M, the older girls in their afterschool program consider it “completely adorable.” We were talking about homonyms the other day, and J offered up “short” and “shirt” as an example. M nodded in agreement. I told them that those words were only homonyms the way that they pronounce them. “Board” and “bird,” too. They have no trouble spelling the “hospital,” but pronounce it “hoss-ta-pole.” They both say “posichun” and “ackchun” for “position” and “action.”

Both M and J went through speech therapy at age 3 to tackle articulation delays. To my ear, they still sound significantly younger than their classmates, but I’m not in any hurry to push them back into speech therapy, since comprehension by others is no longer a problem.

All that I know from linguistics about the acquisition of language and accents would lead me to expect my children to sound more like their peers than their parents. They should be saying things like “y’all” instead of “you guys” like me, although you might be surprised by how twang-less today’s central Texas accent is. They’re in separate classrooms, but it doesn’t seem that that’s quite enough time apart for them to mimic their other classmates’ pronunciation more than each others’. It appears that, despite their lack of a twin language, my daughters’ twin accent indicates that their sisterly relationship has more of an influence on how they speak than any other.

Despite having grown up in Scotland, England and Bangladesh, after 15 years living in the USA, Sadia has come to sound resoundingly Valley Girl. Her 6-year-old twin daughters, J and M, attend an English-Spanish dual language first grade program in the Austin, Texas area. Their Spanish has a way to go before they can duplicate their Olympian feats of  conversation in that language. Unfortunately, Sadia doesn’t speak Spanish and cannot report on whether her daughters’ twin accent extends to that language too.