Q: I am a working lady with twins (a boy and a girl) – 2.5 years of age. My problem is that my son is always hitting, biting and beating his sister who in turn takes it and keeps quite and sits in one corner without talking to anybody. We live in a joint family. We all keep telling my son that it is not correct to beat his sister every time. But he never listens to anybody and keeps on doing the same. My daughter is very curious and talkative. She keeps asking hundreds of question and for this we keep praising her. Is this situation affecting my son? I want your advise as how to make them love each other?

A:Even though they are twins, try and avoid comparing and contrasting them all the time. It is possible that your praising the daughter makes her twin brother a little jealous. Also, generally, boys are more active and aggressive than girls and girls are more verbal. The first thing to do is to let them play separately, as far as possible. Since you have the joint family members in the household, it might be possible to ensure that the children play in different spaces and some family member keeps an eye on the each of them. In a few months, they can both be sent to a play school for a couple of hours. Explaining why he should not hit his sister is not going to be very effective at this age, although gradually he has to learn that. Deny him a treat or a privilege, when he has been very aggressive. Tell your daughter to defend herself, if she can. All the best.