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?

Here, have my first

GOOD GOD !
I'm really glad to OP posted and has had the benefit of all the advice !!

My Dad tells the story of how he actually and honestly had his left hand tied to a chair in the late 1930s to "teach" him to write with his right hand. Did it do any good ?
Did it f**k.

TONS of research into how left handed people are more likely to be good at this or that, how the two hemispheres of the brain control different cognitive functions... Left handed people are unusual in every race and society - but please - not freaks !!!

(herewith off the top of the head list of cool left handed people)

Leonardo de Vinci
Charlie Chaplin
Michael Angelo
Judy Garland
Greta Garbo
Jimi Hendrix
Henry Ford
John F Kennedy
Paul McCartney
Isaac Hayes
Alexander the Great
(eight US presidents)
Rockefeller
Helen Keller
Lewis Carroll
Kurt Cobaine
Both of the Everly Borthers
Cole Porter
Paul Simon (as in Simon and Garfunkel)
Ringo Starr (he was in a band I've heard of)
Tom Cruise
Robert De Niro
Peter Fonda
Betty Grable
Whoopie Goldberg
Robert Redford
Keanu Reeves
Julia Roberts
Pele (greatest footballer in history)
Marvin Hagler
Ayrton Senna
Jimmy Conners
John McEnroe (I watched him win Wimbledon...)
Martina Navratilova

I'll stop...
Oh yeah - James Dead and Marylin Monroe were also Left Handed.

I have to say this is a well deserved flamming!

I still cant get my head round the ridiculousness of this thread ops post!

Some left handed people only have one problem- a right handed mother!
As seen by the list, lots of very successful people are left handed.
It is not a handicap , it is completely normal and we cope perfectly OK.

I'm not surprised you got flames op as yabvu.

Just as an aside, my left handed dd is learning to play guitar and is doing so right handed. Never crossed our minds to do it any other way tbh. She's doing great.

I'm not sure I've read an OP that has made me so angry, in my short time here on MN.

Of course the OP has left because she didn't like the answers.

But I'm chiming in just to emphasise the message to anyone else reading who might be thinking of doing such an ignorant and damaging thing to their child.

My DS is left-handed. He's survived unscathed to his twenties, with a university degree. Oh shock horror. He's utterly utterly normal Neat handwriting even with a fountain pen. Not discriminated against, doesn't find the world difficult. Indeed, he's quite a talented amateur painter & enjoys it (otherwise he's an engineer).

Really, the OP makes my blood boil & I'd report her to SS if I could tad overreaction, but really I just can't believe that the OP is so stupid and ignorant and harmful

Can I point out that dd is learning guitar right handed not because we are trying to force her to be rh. Quite the opposite. It's because it's such a non issue that it never crosses my mind.

Report to social services? For passing objects to her son's right hand?

Even by MN standards the reinvention of this OP by posters keen to find a pretext for maximum outrage is astonishing!

Ds1 is left handed and really didn't want to do crafts as a toddler so I just didn't do it with him. He's now 5, loves crafts, and has drawn me a lovely picture of a dog having a poo and a wee, artistically decorated with glitter

Don't push him,op, let him get on with things and do it his own way, he'll get there.

A0 I said it wasan overreaction!

and
b) This: I would prefer him to be right handed

This is what's so so utterly wrong.

Haven't read the whole thread but OP you are being ridiculous.

Being a leftie does NOT disadvantage people in any way. At all.
Stop overthinking it and just enjoy your son for what he is.
I'm a leftie as are my DC & woe betide anyone who even tried to influence them to pick stuff up with their right hand! That includes my DH, MIL & my best friemd's mother; all of them got short shrift from me.

Lefties aren't special, there's no mystery about it, it's just the way the brain is.

My father had his left hand tied behind his back to make him use his right hand. He developed a very bad stutter as a result.

DH and DS are left-handed, as are one of my brothers and a couple of my cousins. None has suffered, although it is true that LH guitars are slightly more expensive than RH versions.

Can't believe the OP.

my ex was forced to use his right hand (by his mother) which he does use now for writing (which does look kind of effortful and forced), but uses the left for everything else.
now my twins are both left handed, it wouldnt have occurred to me to try to change that (although one of my brothers is convinced i 'forced' one of them to use her left hand - wtf?)
anway personal anecdotes aside OP just wtf?

oh and about left handed guitars - u just take the strings off and string it up the other way surely? although leftie son just plays right handed, he says he prefers to use his left to make the chords.

DS is a leftie like his father and I've never noticed either having problems with it, what problems is it supposed to cause exactly?

Btw, if this has been mentioned already I've missed it, but has anyone seen the theory that purposely playing his guitar right handed contributed to (ambidextrous) Kurt Cobains suicide? Basically, he had scoliosis, and playing right handed was more convenient but more painful.

i think the depression and heroin probably had more to do with it tbh

Ahh, but the depression was caused by the pain, and the heroin was him trying to self medicate it.

Its hardly rare for heroin addicts to have chronic pain issues, they don't just take it for shits and giggles

hmm true.....
(runs upstairs to re-string son's guitar)

un -fucking- believable.

OMG Jimi Hendrix was another leftie who played right handed!

Is this thread for real, in 2013 someone is actually trying to alter their child's genetics. Crazy, crazy talk. I'mm pleased that everyone else seems to be in agreement.

It's daft that you would even try to control this, but everyone else has told you that.

I would say OP, that my DS was left handed throughout nursery then as soon as he started school, just suddenly switched to his right hand for writing. He's stayed right handed ever since.

So firstly, it could all change, and secondly shows that the brain will do whatever it prefers in the end.