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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Left handed preference - AIBU to try to change his mind?

134 replies

CoffeeDog · 12/04/2012 12:47

We have been drawing/writting/colouring this morning.

DT2 has been holding pencils in his left hand (DT's are just 3). When my DD was first learning to hold pencil's my mum would be forever swopping from her left hand to her right hand - she is now right handed, and has neat handwriting.
She said she did this to make her life easier and to make sure she has neat handwriting.

DT1 only holds pencils in his right hand.

AIBU to think its not a big deal anymore what hand he holds a pen in as long as he enjoy's drawing/writing? or should i be constantly trying to get him to change hands?

OP posts:
StetsonsAreCool · 12/04/2012 23:36

My Nan (77) is left handed, as is my Mum (56). They escaped having their hands tied behind their back and the rest of the things mentioned on this thread - I'm so shocked to read that stuff like that happens/ed!

So far, DD (22mo) seems fairly ambidextrous. She builds and plays with her left hand. She digs and draws with her right.

I always wanted to be left handed - I never learnt to knit, as all the women in my family were left handed and I just couldn't teach my hands to do it the opposite way round.

minimisschief · 13/04/2012 07:46

i have the opposite problem. my left handed 4yr old son keeps correcting my right hand writing and when i draw/write i do it with my left hand. I am getting rather good at it lmao

nickelhasababy · 13/04/2012 11:50

I'm really sad at how many of you (aged 31 and it happened to you as a child? that's awful :( ) had to change hands at school.

the only thing I was forced to do right-handed at school was scissors "they just don't make scissors for left hands" (they probably did, they were just prohibitively expensive).
but i would always make a right mess of cutting out (couldn't see the line etc)
I tried leftie scissors when i got older, but I couldn't do it - too many years of pulling with the thumb if using RH scissors in left hand.

oldraver · 13/04/2012 12:06

Its just occured to me, after reading about the poster who found reading (or maybe it was written work) with her dc a little awkward, that this happens with DS with his spellings work.

His teacher sticks a strip of spellings in a column on the left and he has to do the read/cover/spell on the right and he always gets into a pickle as his hand pushes away the 'cover'

takingiteasy · 13/04/2012 12:21

My grandad was forced out of his leftiness at school. It didn't 'come through' again until me. I don't think it's heriditary or anything but he was quite proud!

I agree with a PP who said it makes you more versitile and slightly ambidextourious (sp!!) as you need to fit into a right handed world. There were 4 lefties in my primary school class, and one pair of left handed scissors. It was adapt or sit and wait for ages. So I adapted. I appreciate and think that handedness comes in degrees.

My DH is a carpenter, he is very right handed so much so his right eye is stronger and he is pratically disabled without his right hand. I'm more adaptable and do most things with both hands and like another PP have to try out things sometimes. I know some left handed people that need all the adapted things.

I can only write with my left though, and it's very neat when I want it to be! The only pain is notebooks etc that are binded on the left. Hurrah for cheque books with no stubs!

glastocat · 13/04/2012 12:32

My childminder went to school in the 40s in Ireland and wasn't allowed to write with her left hand, she was thrashed if she did. As one of her school mates collapsed and died after a thrashing she learned to write with her right hand, but it affected her really badly growing up, she had a bad stutter, a twitch etc. As soon as she could dhe reverted to her natural left handedness. So when we spotted by son was left handed we knew to leave him be!

TheSockPuppet · 13/04/2012 13:21

Glasto, oh my gosh that is horrible, what happened to the teacher who beat him up so badly, were they prosecuted?

nickelhasababy · 13/04/2012 13:33

oldraver - you must ask the teacher to make a lefthanded one for your son.

glasto that's awful :(Angry

glastocat · 13/04/2012 14:15

Well according to my childminder the whole thing was hushed up and nothing was done, which is entirely plausible in a Catholic school in the 40's in Donegal, knowing now what we do now of how the church treated some of its pupils. My childminder is still Catholic, but she stopped going to mass a few years ago when all the abuse revelations started soming out, not surprisingly she doesn't really have the stomach for it any more.

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