Referring to themselves in the third person

HI! I used to post here all the time!!!! I have been away for months. It's funny how life just gets busy!

Anyway..

I went to my twin daughters' preschool conference the other day and the teacher brought up something that I have NEVER really noticed. (My girls will be 4 in January.) She said that they often refer to themselves in the third person. Like Sarah will say, "Is it Sarah's turn now?" or "Can Sarah paint next?" or Rachael will say, "Are Sarah 'n Rachael going to play now?" She said that she hears them referring to themselves as "Sarah 'n Rachael" almost like as one word. Now that she mentioned it, I know that it is true and I have noticed it several times. Ooops! So I have been trying to teach them to say "I, me, my, her....." I just thought that was a quirky little thing and I was wondering if others had noticed the same thing. My sister also has twins. They are 10 months younger than mine. I was telling my sister about this yesterday while our kids were playing on a playground and just then we heard her twins doing the same thing! It was sooo funny!

Just wondering if this is a common twin thing!

Shannon

 

My boys did that too but they outgrew it around age 2.5. I think it's more common in twins but my niece will say things like "Katie and Hannah want to play outside" when she's talking to my sister

 

My twins don't refer to themselves in the third person, but they continually refer to themselves as 'us' and 'we' instead of 'I'. We have been through speech therapy and they still refer to themselves as one unit. I find it adorable and I will be sad when they grow out of it.

 

My 2 yo just went through this stage, 4 seems a bit old to still be doing it. Do you ever refer to them in third person when you speak to them? It's a common part of parent-ese Personally, I wouldn't worry though, I would probably just try to work on it when it came up in everyday conversation, and ask the teacher to do the same if she has the chance.

 

Mine used to do this until about 2.5; we took care to use "I", "you", "we", "you" etc. consciously instead of their names and they soon picked this up. We had a lot of confusion between I/we and you for a while, but that was also eventually sorted out.