Separation anxiety

Parents are increasingly getting the backing of state laws to overrule principals’ long-standing practice of separating twins in school.

Since June, five states – Florida, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Massachusetts – have passed laws requiring public schools to respect parents’ requests on classroom placement.

That brings the total number of states with such laws now to nine. Minnesota, Texas, Georgia and New Hampshire are the others.

Advocates of the new laws say blanket policies mandating separation of twins are outdated.

Educators typically separate twins and triplets, saying it helps the children develop separate identities. But parents of multiples say separation can cause their offspring anxiety, especially when there is stress from a divorce or death in the family.

“This was not a research-based policy,” says Nancy Segal, director of the Twins Study Center at California State University-Fullerton, who supports the new laws.

Segal says separation often was for the convenience of teachers. New research points to emotional and academic troubles for some separated twins, she says. Her research found some young twins may need to be within sight of each other to relax.

Leading the legal effort is Kathy Dolan, a Queens, N.Y., mother of 9-year-old twins Ryan and Nicholas.

She needed a doctor’s note to keep her sons together in kindergarten. Following her battle, she founded www.twinslaw.com to push for laws in every state.

”We’re not a bunch of whining parents. (Principals) are ignoring the research at hand,” Dolan says “It comes down to nothing but discrimination and an old wives tale.”

The problem became more visible in the past decade with increases in births of twins and triplets. Nearly 40 percent more twins and triplets were born in 2005 than in 1995, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

Nancy Davenport, president of the National Association of Elementary School Principals, says typically one twin is dominant and may overshadow the other. Parents should be included in the decision, she says, but principals should have the final say.

”I would like the educator to be seen as the professional making a decision in the best interest of the child, certainly in cooperation with parents,” Davenport says.

Pamala Colligan-Wesson, of Prince George, Va., is working for a state law after her sons Alec and Brock were separated against her will. Brock was visibly sad and unfocused in school because he was concerned about his brother, she says.

Now in third grade, Brock, 8, continues to dislike school, she says: “The damage has been done.”