Lefty Troublemaker

I think that you are getting upset over nothing. Being left-handed is not a disability or a handicap. Your daughter will be fine. Both my husband and myself are left-handed and we pray that our daughter (due this week) will be left-handed too. There are a few things that will bother her, like writing in a notebook or trying to cut paper with right-handed sissors, but she will adapt. It's really not that big of a deal!

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My middle child is left-handed. I wrote it on his paperwork and told his teacher before Kindergarten began but she still forced him to use his right hand for half the year. Just thinking about her makes me angry. My son never learned good penmanship so we're teaching him to type. He's 10 now.

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I'm not a lefty but my brother is. I always had to sit to his right at supper so he wouldn't elbow me while eating.

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My mother-in-law always told me that LEFT handed people are always in their RIGHT mind. Just thought it might give you a little laugh. My son is three and I think he mat also be left handed or maybe ambidextrious(sp?)He does things with both hands but leans more towards the left. Also, I don't know if it has anything to do with it but, he starts up stairs with his left foot. I will also be looking out for the advice that anyone gives you.

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Left handiness is not a handicap, except when trying to find a scissor that works correctly. You know, your kid might change hands anyway - my sister was an inverterate lefty until it proved to be so much easier in school that she switched, and is a righty today (there was no undue influence from her teachers either). My husband uses his right hand to mouse, use scissors, and most right hand easier tasks, but he writes with his left and uses his left eye to shoot with. There are work arounds!

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I am the right-handed child of two lefties. So I had the opposite problem of trying to find non-lefty scissors in our house growing up. My son is too young to show a preference yet, but my parents are rooting for lefty. They are both strongly lefty - staying left through school in the 40s and 50s when some teachers would tie your left hand behind your back to train you - but don't feel it's a handicap at all.

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Ethel - Your husband must be pretty talented if he can shoot a gun with his eye. ROFL JK I know what u mean tho. I use my left eye to aim with but I am right handed. hmmmmm.

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As a lefty, I can say that I have survived just fine. Here are a few things: expect bad grades in handwriting especially in the beginning and make sure that every instructor she has is aware that she is left handed. In second grade, I took tennis lessons. No one ever asked if I was left handed, so I learned right handed. It was not until years later, in a private lesson, that an instructor realized that I was playing right when I was a lefty. It made for an interesting game, but tennis would not have been so frustrating had the instructors taught me properly from day one.

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My daughter and Elcie are both left handed. So, I think, am I. I was switched back in the day when it was the thing to do in some places. Now I can't write well with either hand and I type almost everything.

Elcie had problems learning to write but she may have had anyway because of her c.p. I made it clear when she (as well as my daughter) started school that they were to be left alone. My daughter has never had any serious problems.

More and more things are being made for lefties now. I wouldn't worry about it.

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Being lefty rawks! There is nothing difficult about it except occasionally getting a little ink on the side of your hand and (agreed) lefty scissors are not always around when you need them. My husband and I are both lefties and it may sound crazy, but I would have been crushed if my daughter weren't a lefty. She is three and a proud lefty too.

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My son, 10, is a lefty. He finds it easier to turn his school required spiral notebook upside down so the spiral doesn't get in his way. Other than that and the scissor thing (they make lefty scissors, FYI) they are just like everybody else.

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When I was teaching kindergarten a few years ago I had a few left handed children in my class. The only problem any of them had at all was with the scissors (our school provided really cheap ones.) When I bought a bunch of ambidextrous Fiskars scissors all was solved.

As long as her teacher knows Sara is left handed there should be no problems at all. By the way, any teacher worth his or her salt should figure out very quickly if she is left handed even if you don't say anything. Just keep an eye on her for signs of frustration and she will really like it if you try to write letters with your left hand as well. (Especially if she can write better than you can.) It will also help so you can figure out where the printing of letters might need a little bit of change to make it easier for her.

Check out www.fiskars.com for some scissor demos, different types of scissors and retailers. The fist fiskars and the total control scissors are great for beginners. All of these are ambidextrous scissors as well.

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I am a lefty and I've never felt inconvienienced by the rightie world. We learn to adapt and to buy notebooks with the spirals on top, wash the pen ink from the side of our hands and even sometimes learn how to use right handed scissors. I love being a leftie and I'm sure your daughter will too.

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Being left-handed is cool. Being a lefty means you naturally learn to be at least somewhat ambidexterous because the world IS mostly set up for righties. I consider this an advantage really. If anything ever happened to either one of my arms, I wouldn't be totally lost without use of my left hand.

Celebrate being lefty! Woo woo!

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One thing to watch out for is that sometimes dexterity and strength do not dominate on the sdame side. I'm a righty but I'm much stronger on the left, so I [paddle thaton the left in a canoe. If I started over again in softball, I'd probobly want to bat on the left as well. Make sure that not just teachers but also coaches know that your son's a lefty.

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My sister is 15 years old and the ONLY left handed person in my family. She is doing fine. She did have a left handed teacher in school when it was time to learn cursive so that mean she writes "normal" not upside down or something. She says being left handed is NO BIG DEAL, just fun. She can do a lot of things with her right hand too because she was forced to use it at times, but no biggie is still what she has to say on this subject.

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Cathy - Why give up on your son's penmenship? So what he was forced to write with his right hand during Kindergarden, he has had the last five years and the rest of his life to learn how to write. Just go back to the basics, that is what I had to do in Child Development. We were suppose to be helping children to learn how to write (half the class was left handed, don't know how THAT happened) and in order for US to teach THEM we had to be taught properly as well. Just teach him how to print and how to write in cursive, might take a little time but I am pretty sure his teachers will appreciate it. He is only 10, he can still learn things very easily.

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I'm surprised nobody has said this, but I've had the distinct impression that left-handedness is more of a spectrum than an all-or-nothing. My dad is left-handed for writing but does many thing with his right. My husband is the only right-handed person in his family, and the degree of left-handedness of my in-laws varies wildly. Our kids don't have a firm preference yet, but give the genetics we're trying to let them use whichever hand feels natural for the task.

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After reading your post and all the comments, I googled and found this site: http://www.lefthandzone.com/. Left-handed notebooks, and all kinds of other things.

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You want some lefty-scissors. Not that "ambidextrous" nonsense - those are just righty scissors with uncomfortable handles. Actual, left-handed scissors which are jointed differently.

I find lefty can openers to be useful as well, but that's another issue for another year.

And, uh, notebooks that open from the top are better than those that open on the side, but I've never found that an insurmountable problem.

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