A 41-year-old woman was arrested Sunday for allegedly strangling her 12-year-old twin boys, possibly due to stress from raising her children.

Police said Kazue Kishida confessed to killing her two children when they questioned her after she ran her car into an oncoming truck on Route 2 in Ube, Yamaguchi Prefecture, in a suspected suicide attempt.

The police said they discovered the twins, Ryohei and Shohei, lying in their beds in pajamas in their bedrooms on the second floor of Kishida's home in Yamaguchi city.

Kishida allegedly strangled the boys with electrical cords at around 3:30 a.m. She was quoted by police as saying, "I was troubled by raising the kids in their rebellious stage."

Kishida was slightly injured when she drove her car into a truck in the opposite lane on the national highway. She reportedly told police she was trying to kill herself.

Her 43-year-old husband lives in Tottori due to work. The couple's 14-year-old eldest son was at home at the time.

The principal of the elementary school attended by the twins expressed sorrow after learning of the incident, saying, "I heard that both the boys were good at sports, had a lot of friends and worked hard."

Neighbors who knew the family well also said they were shocked because the mother and kids appeared to have been getting along well.

"The mother looked affectionate and it seemed that she managed well in raising the kids even when the husband was not around," a woman who lives nearby said.