Wow. I finally figured out why our homeschool days are unpredictable. Some days are about as enjoyable for me as cleaning out the sewer line (something the Hub and I recently tackled) and other days homeschooling my twins are the sweetest hours I spend. 
Luckily most of our days are closest to the latter, but it is a source of continual consternation to me why each day is so unpredictable. The biologist in me recognizes that people are so completely complex that there certainly must be no way of controlling the outcome of our little homeschool day. But the physicist in me is convinced that if I only try harder to figure it out, my own “3-body” problem must be solvable. In the words of the hands-down best professor and mentor I had in my long career as a student, a man by the name of Dr. Joseph Becker, “you don’t have to be smart to make great discoveries… you just have to be persistent.” I am not sure what he would think knowing that I apply those words daily to the rearing and education of my children, now that my days in the scientific community are over.
My “3-body” problem that is key to creating a positive learning environment for my kids is really a problem with only 2 variables: my kiddos. I always thought that my kids, in spite of being twins, did not compete with each other. They hardly fight. Instead they tend to bicker when they are irritated or tired. Nothing like what I see in nearly every other family I know. So I wrote off the the possibility of twin-twin competition being the culprit.
And then yesterday, as I sat in the shade at our weekly park day watching the dynamics of four siblings, I figured out the subtleties of the spark that initiates twin competition. The mother, my friend, had all four kids (including the twins in the middle of the birth order) happily playing without strife. After a while one of the twin girls reached out for some mom-time. That was the spark that caused a downward spiral of competition between the twins. The second girl saw her twin getting attention and began to push for attention from mom even though she had been perfectly happy without it a moment before. And so it began – a spiral of misbehavior that swooped all the kids in that family into a whirlwind, leaving their poor mother testing the limits of her patience. I realized this week that while I do not have more to deal with than the two twins, but I live that challenge to my patience as well.
Twin competition. This is so much more intense and debilitating than between non-twin siblings. A parent has little recourse once it begins.
So how to homeschool and avoid the twin competition when both your children are learning the same material at the same time? My epiphany involved making my kiddos aware of the cycle and reminding them what great fun a day can be when they avoid the competition. The key to solving my “2-body” problem was letting the 2 bodies do it themselves.
Now, one works on his lessons in his room, in a cozy big chair, while his sister works through her lessons in the living room. I make myself busy tidying up the house near enough to both to hear calls for help with a given math concept or correct spelling of a word, and generally try to not disturb the magic that is going on. Both are positively devouring their lessons. Both are happy. Neither one wants to stop for summer break.
Success! I hope I have done my physics professor proud and shown that yet again: perseverance beats being smart.
