Parents and other significant caregivers have a complicated and long-lasting responsibility to contend with as they get to know and understand their twin children. Really knowing “who is who” within your twin pair, both physically and personality-wise, is no easy feat. Truly, parents’ ability to see their twins as individuals who are unique in personality, behavior, and intellectual abilities is critical to the development of their singular identities. Also, the look-alike factor, coupled with their natural inclination to rely on one another, is a large part of what makes developing individual identity a monumental task. Add in the common cultural belief that twins “can and should agree” makes the situation even more complicated.

In other words, for twins, making a decision about which parent will read them a story, who will get to play on the computer first, or who is the primary person to a new friend is very difficult because most people believe that twins can and will agree on most things. And, in my experience, twins, more often than not, do not agree and will fight to the end of time to win whatever idea, acquisition, or friend is at stake or “up for grabs.”

For example, twins will play together nonstop as toddlers, and fights will break out that can be very over-the-top, loud, and chaotic. But who started the fight and what it is........

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