Hi. I am wondering if anyone is dealing with the same thing here. My boys get along for the most part, but they are "silently" very competitive. I found some notes the youngest triplet wrote in his room recently - he refers to himself as always being "bronze". Meaning he always comes in third with his brothers. They play sports and he considers himself not as good as them, which is not true. They compete with their grades and he does fine, but since he doesn't get all A's he feels like a failure. He feels like he only makes friends thru his brothers and everyone likes them better than him, etc. He says he feels all alone. He is the quiet one and his brothers are more outgoing so I know that must bother him. He feels like no one understands him.

He would never have told me this if I hadn't found the note. I did talk to him about it and he said he was just really having a "bad week".

We try really hard to treat them as individuals but as you know, it's not always easy! Is anyone experiencing this or have any thoughts on how we help him understand he doesn't need to live up or compare himself to his brothers?

I have quad boys that are almost 15, and we have this to some degree. My husband and I have never compared grades among them, but they do. It seems that the majority of the time, the grades fall in the same order with the boys so there's that competition to out-perform the one that usually makes the highest grade. I have three A students and a B student, but the B student has never acted like he has a problem with this, he's just happy to make B's. He is more outgoing than the other three, taller - and always has been, and is the most athletic, so at least he can see things that he is better at. I don't know about your boys, but mine are in the same activities, so it's hard to find that one thing that makes them unique. I've got three guitar players and a drummer, the B student is the drummer so he has that that separates him from the others. I have two that are into sports and two that are more into reading and academics.

Does your youngest have something that he is interested in that the others are not? Could he play a sport that the others don't, or some other type of hobby that could be "his" apart from the others?

Heather, BBBB (two identical, two fraternal) 28 1/2 weeks, now age 18!

WOW! Hats off to you for having FOUR!!! I can't imagine!!

He played soccer for years, but now he's just playing a lot of tennis but he really loves it and wants to play all the time, so that's good. In soccer, he was a goalie and that really made him feel good about himself because he did great and got a lot of attention from that. He's good at tennis, but at the tournaments he is always in competition with his other brother that plays.

They are two identical, 1 fraternal. He's one of the identical. Since he looks like his brother, he doesn't understand why his social life isn't the same as his identical brother. Just challenging to explain at that age. I'm a twin, so I do understand some of what's going on here, it's just that he doesn't want to hear that from me right now! Plus, since there's an odd number, someone will always feel "out". He and his identical brother were closer, but since they have started high school it seems like that is changing. I think he's struggling with that a little bit, too.

He really likes history stuff, but thinks it's geeky (because his brothers tell him that). We are going to spend more one on one time with him and hopefully he will share more and we can find something for just him to do.

Thanks so much for your thoughts, it's so nice to hear from someone going thru the same thing!