Should I make my left-handed child write with right hand?

[Anonymous]

Should not force, but absolutely do permit child to switch hands and tell them they are allowed to switch. Switching hands is common even at age 5.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Happy leftie here, age 54.

I’m the only leftie in my family of origin. I didn’t attend a preschool so learned to use scissors with “regular” scissors. Never could use the special green-handled leftie scissors.

I struggled mightily with cursive handwriting - actually failed it in grade 3 and always got marked down for messy (smudgy), crumpled submitted work since I was dragging my little hand all over my paper!

Interestingly, I am mostly ambidextrous, except for handwriting EXCEPT - I found out I can write on a large whiteboard easily, but it’s a totally different handwriting style!

I’m not athletic but have tried golf and tennis and instinctively hold right. I’m right-footed/dominant. I broke my right ankle and this was challenging.

I use hand tools (mixers, hammers, paint brushes, etc.) only with my right hand.

By the way, I have gorgeous penmanship - cursive and print and I absolutely love to hand write letters, take notes, etc. I’m often asked if
I’m an architect (I’m not!) because my handwriting is so perfect. Also, I hand-addressed my own wedding invitations because why pay for a calligrapher? For fun, I’ve hand addressed friends’ invitations and did a seating chart display.

I can very easily write on a large board with my right hand

This is a cool story

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First of all, I am a left hander so don’t flame me as ignorant.

Handedness is really a continuum according to most scientific research. I use my left hand for dexterity and my right hand for strength, my son uses his left hand for dexterity and strength.

My experience is that most right handers are pretty firmly on the far right handedness end of the continuum and lefties can vary a bit more on “how” left handed they are (this is anecdotal, but I do know quite a few lefties that are somewhere more toward the middle and I do not know any righties that are anything but at the far end).

If your daughter looks comfortable with her hand choice, let it be. There is nothing wrong with being left handed. If she seems to be inconsistent, invite (don’t force) her to explore her options so she can figure out what works best for her.

As a lefty, I somewhat agree with this. It is a spectrum, but there are some things that aren't really a spectrum. For instance, you really have a dominant eye. If I have learned to use something right-handed, like a mouse, I can switch that to my left hand easily. Going the other direction, from left to right, is far more difficult.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Happy leftie here, age 54.

I’m the only leftie in my family of origin. I didn’t attend a preschool so learned to use scissors with “regular” scissors. Never could use the special green-handled leftie scissors.

I struggled mightily with cursive handwriting - actually failed it in grade 3 and always got marked down for messy (smudgy), crumpled submitted work since I was dragging my little hand all over my paper!

I can very easily write on a large board with my right hand

That’s interesting. In learning cursive we would copy sentences and the the teacher would ask left handed people to raise their hand. The teacher would come by and make a mark on the left handed student’s paper. This way they understood the smudges and whatever else differentiated the left vs right handed writing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Happy leftie here, age 54.

I’m the only leftie in my family of origin. I didn’t attend a preschool so learned to use scissors with “regular” scissors. Never could use the special green-handled leftie scissors.

I struggled mightily with cursive handwriting - actually failed it in grade 3 and always got marked down for messy (smudgy), crumpled submitted work since I was dragging my little hand all over my paper!

I can very easily write on a large board with my right hand

That’s interesting. In learning cursive we would copy sentences and the the teacher would ask left handed people to raise their hand. The teacher would come by and make a mark on the left handed student’s paper. This way they understood the smudges and whatever else differentiated the left vs right handed writing.

Not my rural Ohio teachers! I moved there in 3rd from FCPS and at the time (1978), my new classmates had already learned cursive in grade 2.

My own young adults DC can’t read my cursive (and again it’s literally teacher-like, Palmer Method textbook) so I most often print. I have multiple handwriting styles that I’ve developed!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:i would. develop both sides of the brain. worked out beautifully for my brother who writes righty and plays (sports) lefty. excelled in both.

+1

Ambidextrous people are smarter.

I doubt it but if that were true then left handed people would be smarter. Most lefties are ambidextrous by necessity. My great grandmother, grandmother, mother, me and my 2 dd are all left handed. Also my two sisters. All the females.

Left handedness IS correlated with intellectual giftedness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:i would. develop both sides of the brain. worked out beautifully for my brother who writes righty and plays (sports) lefty. excelled in both.

+1

Ambidextrous people are smarter.

I doubt it but if that were true then left handed people would be smarter. Most lefties are ambidextrous by necessity. My great grandmother, grandmother, mother, me and my 2 dd are all left handed. Also my two sisters. All the females.

Left handedness IS correlated with intellectual giftedness.

Not necessary

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:i would. develop both sides of the brain. worked out beautifully for my brother who writes righty and plays (sports) lefty. excelled in both.

+1

Ambidextrous people are smarter.

I doubt it but if that were true then left handed people would be smarter. Most lefties are ambidextrous by necessity. My great grandmother, grandmother, mother, me and my 2 dd are all left handed. Also my two sisters. All the females.

Left handedness IS correlated with intellectual giftedness.

And also captivating personalities and wicked sense of humor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:i would. develop both sides of the brain. worked out beautifully for my brother who writes righty and plays (sports) lefty. excelled in both.

+1

Ambidextrous people are smarter.

I doubt it but if that were true then left handed people would be smarter. Most lefties are ambidextrous by necessity. My great grandmother, grandmother, mother, me and my 2 dd are all left handed. Also my two sisters. All the females.

Left handedness IS correlated with intellectual giftedness.

As I wrote, I’m left handed along with my sisters and daughters, all the females. All I had ever heard was that left handed people are more artistic, more creative. Also clumsier because so much is geared towards right handed people.

So I looked online. There is no real difference between IQs. It’s advanced math that left handed people excel at compared to right handed people.

Left-handers were found to exhibit a more developed right brain hemisphere, which specializes in processes such as spatial reasoning and the ability to visualize mental representations of objects.

A 1995 meta-analysis of 43 studies in the journal Psychobiology determined that left-handers possess a significantly larger corpus callosum — the bundle of nerve fibers connecting the two hemispheres of the brain — than right-handers do. Because of this there is an “enhanced connectivity” between the two hemisphere of the brain.

During the study a series of experiments were performed on 2,300 students in a range of tasks, including writing, drawing, throwing, and problem-solving. The results showed that left-handers outperformed the rest of the sample in difficult problem-solving tasks, that required them to apply mathematical reasoning and logic.

Researchers looked at the differences in mathematical achievement between more than 2,300 right and left-handed students between the ages of 6 and 17 in Italy. While there was no difference when looking at the easier math problems, left-handed students had a significant edge on the more difficult problems, such as associating a mathematical function to a set of data, according to the 2017 study in the journal Frontiers, led by Giovanni Sala, an assistant professor at the Institute for Comprehensive Medical Science at Fujita Health University in Japan.

https://www.livescience.com/are-left-handed-people-smarter

Fun fact: The highest rates of left-handedness are the Northeast states - in Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. The lowest rates are in the Midwest, in Wyoming and North Dakota.”
Vermont has 13.3 percent, Massachusetts has 13.2 percent.

[Anonymous]

My MIL was born in Europe and was forced to switch to her right hand as a child. I don’t think it was devastating, but it had enough of an impact that it came up and I heard about it 30+ years later. She also didn’t do the same to her left-handed child.

In my sample size of one (my DH), the lefty is definitely more science/math oriented, much more logical, and has absolutely the WORST handwriting I have ever seen!

[Anonymous]

no

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:no

Let me guess your kids are right handed?