[SomeBunniesMom]

This may be a bit of a smart-alec answer, but i am trying my best to do things as differently as possible from what my own parents did. We waited a long time for our family, and in that time i had a lot of opportunities to observe other people with their kids and make mental notes of what worked and what didn't. I observed a lot of parents who were inconsistent, who didn't follow through with a discipline, who made empty threats, who yelled and screamed so much the kids tuned them out.

I have two year old twins who say thank you and excuse me, who pick up their toys, help me clean up after a meal, never run away from me in a public place. I can take them to restaurants to eat meals and they are behaved and do not disturb the other diners. We take them to church and they stay with us through the whole service. they will walk with me in a store and not touch what they are told not to touch.

I constantly praise them for being good girls, for being helpful, for saying the right things and for doing the right things. When they have behavior problems, i remind them of how they are expected to act and i try my best to ignore inappropriate behavior. I know that sounds so strict, but it is much harder on me than it is on them at any given moment really. I am also sure to say positive things about them to other people when they can hear me. One of the most common comments about twins is "oh you must have your hands full!" to which I always reply "oh no, they are such good girls". It's become an almost self-fulfilling prophecy -- I expect them to be good and that what they are. I think kids do intuitively pick up on that.

I try not to expect anything from them that i don't feel they are capable of doing, such as riding longer than two hours in the car without having an overload. If something like that does happen i try to understand that it's just as much my own fault for putting them into that situation. I try to understand that most of their problem behaviors are due to being tired or hungry and that i am also cranky when i am tired and hungry but I have more ways of expressing my self than they do and I have more self-control than they do.

otherwise i just teach by example. I want them to pick up their toys at the end of the day, so from day one I made sure they saw me doing it. It's part of the routine of our house, and they have taken to it naturally. I say please and thank you when I talk to them and they are learning very well to say it when they talk to other people.

I took a lot of flack for breaking away from tradition. My family and my husband's family ridiculed me, but I stuck to what I was doing, and now they are praising how well-behaved these girls are. They all predicted that i was going to be overwhelmed by raising twins and that I was getting in way over my head. I think I was determined that they were going to be wrong!

i would love to be able to take all of the credit and say I am really on to something great here, but i do think that I have been unbelievably blessed with good tempered children which is where half of the credit goes.