SiL is trying to "correct" nephew's being left-handed

[BadLad]

Ever since he was a few months old, my in-laws have noticed and remarked with some concern that my youngest nephew reached for things with his left hand for the most part.

Now he is very nearly four, and they are actually telling him to stop and use his right hand when he eats, scribbles with a pencil or uses anything like scissors.

He loves eating, so he had always been (to my inexpert eyes) very good at feeding himself. He has graduated out of chopsticks with finger holes to normal child-chopsticks very young. But they make him hold them and his fork (when he isn't using a knife) in his right hand.

It doesn't seem to cause him much frustration, but AIBU to think this is wrong. I've asked why they are doing this, and SiL says it will be easier to get things for right-handed people in future. That seems a bit weak to me - plenty of people here are left-handed so they are catered for.

It just seems a bit hard on him to me.

I think Americans hold their fork in their right hands. They seem to cut their food up and then swap the fork to their right and no longer use to knife at all, with certain meals.

I discovered this when I stayed with some Americans for about 2 months. Initially I thought it was just them as a family but it appears to be a common thing. Boggled my 16 year old mind a bit at first!

I don't think Americans have any such rules about eating, not remotely like most the English. Elbows off table, don't chew with mouth open. Use fork not fingers. Those are enough. We find it baffling that folk can be so uptight about what others do with cutlery.

Although I will always think eating food off back of your fork is just WEIRD, totally counter-intuitive about best use of the implement's shape.

I'm astounded at this. As a left hander I can reassure you that the only problems I ever had was smudging my writing and using a potato peeler. Both rectified very easily 1: by tilting the page 2) by getting one that someone of either hand can use. It's ridiculous that people do this.

Why the catholic query? Are they weirdly anti lefties? Don't understand?

lljkk oh I didn't mean it was a rule as such, more like a...cultural norm?

Feellikescrooge - huge amount of superstition around left handed ness in Catholicism, yes. It symbolises the devil.

1 in 7 of us are left handed.

Tell her to fuck off. It's not the 1920s.

And just clocked that it's her DS and not yours. OK, tell her to not be so fucking ridiculous for all the reasons given upthread.

Yes slightlyconfused - potato peelers! We always had double sided ones at home. I remember being bemused that I was given a 'left handed peeler' in domestic science at school. They were kept separate from the 'normal' kitchen equipment.

Flomple whatever bloody Debretts states, you reverse things for a left hander. If they don't state that, then they should in this day and age.

I get the cultural reasons people have for trying to get children to use their right hands. In some cultures, I understand, you would only eat using your right hand (no cutlery) and the left for cleaning yourself. I have wondered how I would cope with that. It would be a struggle.

I could imagine that trying to get a leftie to use their right would be like my trying to use my left hand, I'm not very dexterous with my left.

wow - I'm a left hander and eat with my fork in my left hand. It's so much easier to manoeuvre food from plate to mouth using my dominant hand.

ouryve - fork on its own in left hand, knife and fork together then fork in right hand and knife in left.

I find the ignorance about left handedness and some of the twaddle that always seems to come out on these threads so disappointing in this day and age.

It should be celebrated - so many creative people are lefties and then there are the famous sports people. Jimi Hendrix famously learned to play the guitar upside down because he was left handed and, presumably, no one showed him how to re-string it. Just think of the skill and determination that took.

The difference should be celebrated, not unfavourably compared with what is 'normal'.

To those saying showing a preference at a few months means there could be problems...what sort of problems exactly?
DS1 (aged 4) has shown a left handed preference from when he first began feeding himself at 8 months. He has a very strong left hand/left foot preference. There was no doubt he was left handed by age two. He has always been developmentally behind his peers but not quite enough to cause concern.
He can walk, run, jump, climb etc so certainly doesn't appear to have any problems with his right side.
DS2 is nearly 3 and has no preference, he even writes mirror images with both at the same time though his preschool think his favours his left.
Me and DH are both right handed!
OP I can't think of any good reason for trying to make him use his right so can only conclude your sil is in the wrong. It's a very strange thing to do.

Is that my ignorance wowfudge?

Maybe I'm coming at this from a different angle as most of my huge family are lefthanded. They all hold their knives in their right hand. How is it ignorant to teach my child to do something the same way round as all their left handed relatives? It's not like mealtimes are particularly oppressive, it's just something that's happened along the way like them learning to pour drinks, asking to leave the table, not interrupting. I've done way more ignorant things as a parent than that.

I'm not saying for a second that we should make children write with their wrong hand. But there are plenty of things where we just pick things up as they are presented to us. Men's buttons do up one way and women's the other, so 50% of us learn to do them up the 'wrong' way round for us. We do it from an early age and it is a total non-issue. Some countries drive on the left and use the right hand to change gear, but in the UK we are the other way round. We do it from day 1 and it's just normal. Likewise all flautists play with their left hand at the top from the start. Holding your table knife in your right is a similar sort of thing for me - easy if done from early on, but swapping later on would be hard. I realise it's not a popular view on here, but to see it as some sort of oppression or failure to celebrate would be massively overthinking it.

Even in Japan attitudes are changing but many teachers and doctors are old fashioned. Hopefully his teacher will have a more modern approach and tell the mother to stop.

My son had a left preference from baby time too, there's nothing wrong with his right hand he was just a lefty. It seems an unnecessary thing to try and 'correct'.

My grandmother was of the 'left correct generation', she ended up ambidextrous. How very confusing for the child.

I'm left handed, but only for writing, using a spoon & chopsticks. I'm right footed and use a knife & fork the "right handed" way. My computer is set in the standard orientation as well.

Appparently when is was a kid my grandmother tried to correct my left handedness as she thopught it would disadvantage me in later life (it hasn't).

At University, there were 10 students on the final year of my course, six of whom were left handed.

I'm left-handed but use my right hand for a LOT of things.

I use a computer right handed - which benefits me when using graphic pads on computers because I draw with my left and use the mouse or keyboard with my right. Much more efficient.

I use right handed scissors and can openers (can't use left ones), I also crochet, play tennis/badminton right handed.

My handwriting is great. I have very good handwriting compared to anyone, not just other left handers. It doesn't impact me negatively in any way.

I just can't see a reason to stop him using his left hand, but I do understand why they would want to encourage mixed-handedness. So I would encourage using both hands. It would be a benefit later in life I would bet.

Haven't read all the comments so hopefully others have already mentioned this, but NO - do so dangerous to neurological development to interfere with handedness - in extreme cases can even be a famous cause for stammering in fact. It can really mess up neurological Dev. I really hope they listen.

My in-laws are not religious or superstitious, but they don't want him to use his left hand because of how it looks to other people, apparently.

I have known left-handed people here - never thought to ask if people tried to coerce them out of it when they were young. Hopefully this sort of thinking will die out soon, rather like the years when few people here have babies in case they are girls (every sixty years here it is considered unlucky to have a girl, so the birthrate dips sharply).

Thanks for all the comments.

My left handed dh is convinced that left handers are on average more intelligent. Not sure where he got this from but you could pass it on to the sil. Otherwise you could buy some lhanded scissors for them to show they are available over here if not in Japan.

I remember the left handed potato peelers! Mum bought me one specially, I loved it and I loved being Left handed.

Luckily I was never forced to write with my right hand at school. My Dad would've gone berserk if I had. I do most things with my Left hand.

Disappointed Same here I would've loved one of my girls to have been Left handed but it wasn't to be.

I do hate being called cack handed.

My mum was a leftie. She went through primary school with her left hand tied to the chair. Barbaric.

I love being left handed and am secretly hoping our children will be too. I can definitely relate to the different ways of thinking and tapping in with the more creative side of the brain, although equally some things like sport and writing were a struggle growing up.

I use my cutlery the standard british way - seems to make sense as you always have your fork in your dominant left hand but my knife and cutting skills took time to develop. If I am using a knife alone (eg cutting or buttering bread) then I will switch it to my left hand. I wasn't forced to eat this way, but I am glad I do. I went to a prestigious university, and I was amazed at how much emphasis was placed on 'correct' table etiquette, even amongst other undergrads.

I use a standard right handed mouse but in my left hand (so with the reverse fingers) despite lots of enthusiastic IT teams trying to offer me special left handed equipment.

It always confuses me how fascinated / surprised right handed colleagues are and other left handers seem to feel a solidarity but I don't tend to notice what hand other people are using.

Flomple no, it wasn't directed at you. You are back tracking somewhat though as you said you gently encouraged your children to use their cutlery in the same hands as a right handed person would in your first post. Now they are doing what other left handed relatives do.

I don't understand the last sentence of your last post. Could you please explain what you mean?

Some other posters have mentioned degrees of lefthandedness and I think there may well be some truth in that. I prefer driving on the right in a left hand drive car as it comes more naturally to me and my spatial awareness is better - things seem to click into place instinctively. I drive a right hand drive car on the left here in the UK perfectly well and can manoeuvre and park, etc without issue though.