ABSTRACT
How parents react to their twin children is based on their own childhood experiences, financial and emotional support available to the family, knowledge about how to raise twins, the stability of the home environment, and the presence or absence of abuse. Parents’ reactions to their twin children is crucial in how the twin-attachment develops. Based on these reactions, parents develop parenting styles that impact how twin-identities develop. Issues with separation and individuation, competition and sharing that twins deal with as they grow and develop are related to the pattern of twinship that parenting fosters in infancy and early childhood. This chapter addresses these patterns of twinship and offers descriptions from twins themselves to show how these patterns become manifest in the twin relationship.
