Lefthanded Kids

[Brenda]

Stephanie is lefthanded and has a hard time with handwriting and cutting.I saw a site where you can purchase lefthanded pencils,paper,scissors,etc.You can even buy a lefthanded mouse and keyboard!I wonder if it could help her? P.S.It is weird because she only writes with her left hand.She eats ,brushes her teeth and cuts with her right.I try to get her to write with her right hand and she can't.

[finnmom]

HI
I think that you should just let her to be lefthanded, those scissors, pencil´s etc. are a good help for her. Some of us just happend to be lefthanded, there is no theaching to turn that othervise. there has been a time(a least in Finland) when all kid´s were supposed to be righthanded, at early 50´s I think, and I´ve heard that was totally brutal! just let her be as she is, buy some helpfull thing´s and enjoy of your child
Marja

[loveforeric]

Brenda;
Hi!

I have been left-handed all my life. It can be intersting but I quite enjoy this differnece.

I can't even hold a pencil in my right hand well. When school I played all sports as if right handed. When I played softball I could not bat left-handed, it felt foreign. But ask me to do anything else, then I am sooooo left-handed. I would just get your daughter some things to help out and really enjoy her uniqueness.

Have a great Holiday,

[eaccae]

Both my sister and I can write with both hands (although much better with our right) and we do a lot of things with our left hands, like eat, open doors, etc.

Yes - those left handed things will help your daughter. The one thing they say is not to force handwriting with the right if they are naturally left - can lead to handwriting problems in the future.

[milesofsmiles]

I am sort of left handed and sort of right handed. I can eat, bowl, do chores, shoot pool either way, but writing has mostly been done with my right hand (except for the time I shattered my radius and ulna). My mother-in-law was forced to write with her right hand when she was going to school. It was the most difficult thing she said she had to do in school. She advised to do what comes naturally. Our kids have enough things to learn let alone teaching a fine motor skill going against every grain in their body

Miles

[SKay]

My daugther writes left-handed but is ambidextrous in other areas (she's not quite 3). Is the tendency to use both hands rather than use one exclusively common to ADDers? I don't know that she is ADD yet, but I think her brother is ADHD.

By the way, neither my husband nor I are left-handed, so I did a little reading about left-handedness. It is supposedly a genetic trait, but very recessive. Even if both parents are left-handed, the child has a much better chance of being right-handed than left-handed. So how our daughter got to be left-handed, I don't know. I do have an uncle that is left-handed. I don't know of anyone on my husband's side of the family that is left-handed.

[Brenda]

The other day I made Stephanie try to write her name using her right hand.She wrote it from right to left and some of the letters were backwards.When she used her left hand she wrote from left to right and the letters were not backwards.She does alot better with her left.

[rosyred45]

I'm not left handed, but my grandmom is, she said when she was growing up, the teacher kept taking the pencil out of her left hand, putting in her right, and then moving the paper "right". Where then, mom-mom used to stare her down and put the pencil BACK INTO THE LEFT HAND AND CONTINUE. I laughed when she told me. Huh, wonder where the stubborness comes from.

Any how, Educationally speaking, I've heard that if you try to force a lefty to be a righty it will effect everything they try or do because they are going against what comes natural and have to "rewire" in a sense the brain waves .

And last note, young children almost always color/draw/whatever with both hands. It just depends on which they favor and how their own brain is. they are still developing their sense of touch and the rest will fall into place as they mature.

Have a good one.
Kaiti

[AnneM]

This is interesting - particularly the bit about whether our adhd'ers are more likely to make use of BOTH hands... my 15 year old son is right-handed when it comes to writing but when it comes to EATING he ALWAYS (and always HAS) eaten with his knife and fork the "other" way around (i.e. the left-handed way!)

It has always baffled me!!

[Jenn]

Kat can use both but does tons better with her right hand. Mikie is lefty all the way. He can't throw or hardly write with his right hand. Not sure about cutting, because at home IF I SEE him with sicssors I take them away. If not things will get cut or kitties will loose their wiskers.

And you know what they say about those lefties. They are the only one's in their right mind. But if Mikie is in his right mind than I must be a complete "skits".

[Honeysmom]

I can use both hands very easily. But I have to wonder, how is a left handed pencil special. I thought a pencil was a pencil. I can see the siccisors (sp).

DS2 also uses both and everytime my grandma sees her use her left hand she says "you better break that habit when she is still young enough!" I just laugh. Then my dad laughs and says "Mom, I'm a lefty and YOU never corrected it." I just tell grandma they don't force kids to change anymore.

How does the saying go...Lefties are in their right mind!!

[rosyred45]

I'm just glad someone is in their right mind.
Mom-mom learned to crochet by sitting opposite of my Aunt Ella and follow her step by step.

I taught my neighbor last year how to crochet the same way.

Kaiti

[SKay]

Just a bit of trivia: When I first noticed my daughter's lefthandedness, I started watching for other left-handed people. I noticed that Peter on The Brady Bunch threw left-handed but wrote right-handed. The actor Christopher Knight who portrayed him was diagnosed with ADD in 1997.

[rosyred45]

I remember hearing that. I'm trying to think of anybody else that's left handed.

Now I'm going to be watching TV just to see who's left handed. ;D

Kaiti

[dansmommy]

DD4 is left-handed and I've watched people for handedness too. It seems like a lot of actors are left-handed. I think the principal of ds's school is too. It seems to make life less boring to have a few lefties around. Christie