Encouraging right handedness in toddler

[Pearlsaplenty]

My 2 year has been showing a preference to using his left hand so I have been encouraging him to use his right hand by passing him thing to his right hand, kicking balls to his right side etc. I know it is very bad to force right handedness and I would never do that.

I would prefer him to be right handed as I know it is easier for general everyday living and also I have family members/friends who have said that it is more difficult to be a left handed when it comes to music eg learning guitars upside down if there is no left handed one to use.

Would I be unreasonable to ask his nursery to also encourage this?

Ridiculous. Life is not harder if you're left handed. Totally absurd.

What is your fixation with guitars all about?

Btw, lefties tend to be the speediest typists (a skill your son is arguably more likely to need) due to the layout of the QWERTY keyboard system.

It is a strange thing, but in the school I work in ,the majority of the Teachers are left-handed, whereas the TA's are mostly right-handed! I kind of expect anyone who is a teacher to be left-handed, now.
When it comes to teaching handwriting, they have to do it so that both left and right-handers can follow it.

I'm essentially right-handed, but I do some things in a left-handed direction, hand sewing for example.

My youngest son writes with his right hand, but finds it really uncomfortable to use a knife and fork in the ordinary way,so he has the fork in his right hand and the knife in his left when he eats. (He's 13 now, and finds it much easier this way).

OMFG!
Who the hell believes the world is 'easier' if you are right handed????
I am left-handed, left-footed, left everything-dominant and I find the world just as 'easy' as everyone else. My handwriting is the neatest anyone has ever seen, I can use scissors - right handed ones in a LEFT hand and bear in mind gear sticks are on our left in a car too. I really can't remember anything else that makes 'life difficult' for a left handed person - because it fecking doesn't!!!!
There is nothing that I find difficult. And I can definitely vouce for the speedy typist malarky - I am super fast at typing!!!!

DH and I are both southpaws and life has never presented any problems to us.

Leave him alone. He will be FINE as a left hander. Promise.

I'm right handed but do a lot of things left handed.

Trying to force a child to be something they're not isn't on. I've got Aspergers and was being pushed into being "normal"

Please don't!

I hope he isn't gay. Will you be pushing girls at him?

I haven't read all the replies but I just looked at OP in absolute horror! I am left handed, I am completely normal. People stopped doing what you are doing around 1946- do not do it to him. If he is left handed he is left handed- full stop.

I was forced at school to write and use my right hand. Any attempts to use my left hand side was met with a slap on the wrist. It resulted in me having terrible spelling, difficulty with telling time on analogue clocks and a stammer and stutter that has haunted me all my life.

Forcing a child to go against its nature is cruelty

I'm left handed. I play the piano and the violin. I actually found it quite easy to play the violin the right handed way. I think its an advantage obviously. The only problem I have is teaching right handed dc to hold a pencil correctly. But their teachers know this so they have shown them for me.

Yabu

Maybe OP is a wind up but here's an interesting story anyway which someone might have insight into.

When DD1 was about a year or just before, I noticed she usually used her left hand to do everything with. I would put things in her right hand without thinking and she would swap them over without fail. By the time she was 18 months I would try hard to remember to give things to her left hand so she didn't have to swap. It wasn't a surprise to me as DH is left handed and I never saw it as a disadvantage - more an advantage, as DH is very ambidextrous and coordinated compared to me who is very stuck on right only for everything.

Then one day at about 2 1/2, DD1 was drawing and scribbling and I noticed she was using her right hand. It was like someone had flicked a switch. From then on she used her right hand for most things and has done ever since. I would have sworn I spent the first couple of years of her life just being stupid or indulging some left handed fantasy but I have videos of her swapping stuff to her left hand as a baby to prove I wasn't on some hallucinogenic drug!

She's nearly grown up now and still right handed. But weirdly, not really properly right handed. She does ballet and skating and, particularly in skating, spins the opposite way to most people. When people see her spin they say "Oh, you're left handed." She stirs things the opposite way to me and lots of things she does, like eating, seem to be the same as left handed people. She seems like a left handed person who writes and does most things with her right hand, if that makes sense.

It's a mystery to me (and her) and I would love someone who knows more about this sort of stuff to solve it! I certainly never encouraged either hand as a todller - just followed her lead.

17 years on!!

YABVU. My dad was forced to use his right hand at school back in the 60's when he was a kid. It made him stammer and go funny until my nan realised what was going on and she marched down to the school and took the teacher to task.

My dad (born 1917) was forced to use his right hand. He developed a stammer which never left him.

My dh teaches guitar. He has just spluttered in response to my enquiry about instruments and handedness. It depends entirely on how you are taught. If you have a good teacher handedness won't make any difference to your progress, you'll just handle the instrument slightly differently; and everyone finds instruments hard at first.

Oh I missed this.

"Time traveller"

And that Da Vinci was a quite clever chap who was quite good at arts and craft

Jimi Hendrix was left handed. At first he just turned the guitar upside down and then restrung it (mechanical details which need changing), but later he played it either way.

No left handed instruments in the orchestra. If you're left handed you just learn to play how it is.

Left handed guitars are more expensive that right handed guitars and you have less choice, so don't bother. Just give him a normal guitar and he'll learn to play it.

What makes you think he'll want to play guitar anyway?

You do get left handed drum kits. They're right handed kits set up the other way round.

A harmonica can be turned upside down to make it left handed.

My friends school has been trying to force her son to write with his right hand. Appalling in my opinion. You have also stated that you have been taking steps to "encourage" him to use his right, and then follow up with "I wouldn't try to force him though" - ummm??

This is exactly the sort of thread we want a for. (Hear that, MNHQ?)

A harmonica can be turned upside down to make it left handed.

Thats interesting. I never thought of that. I can play the harmonica. Really don't need to turn it upside down though. People learn to adjust in a right handed world. If you don't know anything else it just becomes the norm.

I can see how people develop a stammer from being forced to use their opposite hand. I am left-handed; I can also write with my right hand but can't think well at the same time, e.g. wouldn't be able to construct an argument and write it down automatically with right hand. Sounds weird right? OP, don't damage your son please, he has no choice in his dominant hand, and life is just fine as a left-hander.

I taught myself to play the piano as a child and the whole point of the instrument is that it is a complete sound, with a bass and a treble, so it needs no accompaniment.

Ideal for left brained people and explains why so many of my peers found it difficult.

If he's gay, will you try and make him straight?

Paul McCartney's left-handed, and he's probably the best bass guitarist on the planet. What's the problem?