Left handed DD - anything I need to know?

[camdancer]

DD1 (3) looks like she is going to be left handed. She is pretty ambi but seemed to have settled recently on writing left handed. Is there anything I need to know to support her? Anything I need to know? Do we need to buy things like left handed scissors etc?

i would buy left handed scissors for sure. that is probably about it. she may write from right to left in mirror image when she begins school, my dd did this in the first term of school. She soon trained herself to write the other way.

I would just allow her to find her own comfort, my dd is predominantly L handed but can use her tennis racket in both hands.

My DD is a lefty too (as am I) but for now apart from the scissors there isn't much she needs. Most everything else works the wrong way round. As she gets older, you'll have to consider things like tin openers (I can only use the cheap metal ones) and some sharp knives are only sharpened one side which can make things difficult.

My DD does the mirror writing thing, her teacher told me she'd never seen it before but then I found out she was newly trained so she may not have done

definitely yes to lefthanded scissors - the child's ones I have are one handle yellow and one green, so easy to spot. It is really hard to cut using scissors designed fo rthe opposite hand.

when your DD starts writingyou may want to help her find a comfortable writing angle, as it is so easy to smudge writing as the goes over the top of what has been already written as you continue writing - angling the writing paper or book can help with this.

Hockey is a bit tricky left handed. You have to use a lefty bow in archery. Cutlery takes longer to get to grips with.

Thanks for the advice. I'll get some scissors for her and try to watch her writing angle. So far she seems to be fine - but then she isn't trying to write on lines (or even in lines) yet.

Have always used scissors right handed so can't comment on that.

Main problem for me was smudging - years of misery with inky pens (school insisted we use fountain pens). Writing didn't become comfortable for me till I was 15 or 16 when it finally 'clicked'. Writing angle may help, but less smudgy pens/paper is likely to be a big thing - girls especially like their work to look 'neat' and it's horrible when everything you do just looks a mess.

Nowadays the only thing I find a minor irritation are measuring jugs or measuring cylinders in the science lab - numbers etc. are invariably printed the wrong way relative to the spout for a left hander!

My dd is 8 and a lefty sports and music can be tricky. She is very dominantly left. She wanted to learn guitar, teacher wanted to teach her right handed but it failed so we are going to have to get lefthanded one. She also does martial arts and some of the patterns/movements are pretty much set up for right handers so dd naturally turns the wrong way so takes a while to get the hang of things. However ages valued on the footy team as the only left footer!

Depending on what your relatives / other people who interact with your DD are like, make sure they don't try and 'correct' her to being right-handed. Sad to say there are still people out there who think left-handedness is something children should be trained out of.

That said, if she's got some ambidextrousness, encouraging that will be useful for her later for things like scissors and tin openers as mentioned above.

So basically whichever hand she wants to use for whatever task, let her go with it

When playing rounders make sure she doesn't give away her left handedness until the last minute. The fielders will all be the wrong side so she's guaranteed to get round at least once :) OtherwiseTeach her to angle books when writing, look out for the mirror image writing and help with that, buy special scissors, it's easier to hold cutlery the 'wrong' way round and she should try and seat herself to the left of a right hander to save banging elbows all the time

make sure she turns the page at a diagonal angle across herwhen she's writing- that will mean that her hand is below the line she's writing and will avoid the "hookhand" scenario.

Don't encourage her to write letters the wrong way round - she should be writing all letters the same way as righties, but will write the crossing lines the other way.
(so A, T, t, E, F, f mainly)

ooh, and definitely get her a left-handed rule - I love mine (although a right-handed one is great for learning subtraction)

have a look at www.anythinglefthandedco.uk

www.anythinglefthanded.co.uk

forgot the dot.

AllBelly - no! it's much easier to use cutlery the right way round - the left hand holds the fork, which it would if you had no knife, so much easier!

im left handed the only problems i ever had was with scissors, and writing. i used to have my book upside down and lean right around the page so i didn't smudge. eating with a knife and fork never a problem

My DD is left handed. Only problem I found was teaching her to knit. I couldn't.

oh yeah Viviennemary, my mum could never teach me to knit either!

now, see, my mum taught me to knit, she's left-handed as am I, but she was taught by a right-handed knitter.
she's very good at it.

same with crochet. we both do it right handed because that's how we were taught.

Nickel That makes sense and I do eat the right way now but when I was little I couldn't cut my food properly if my knife was in my right hand. Unless you're very posh and put your knife down after cutting and switch fork hand?

As a lefty, IMO encourage the ambidextrous trait.
I can only write and paint, use a chopping knife with my left hand but most other things, i use my right - use scissors in my right, a computer mouse etc. I swap hands playing tennis! It's handy being ambi as you have the ability to use most righty things.

I'm a leftie insomuch as I write with my LH and use a knife in my LH and fork in my RH when eating.

BUT if I'm cutting bread, I'll use the knife in my RH. I use a spoon in my RH. If I played tennis, I'd hold the racket in my RH. I use scissors in my RH. Not that I play darts, but if I did I'd use my RH. Etc etc etc

I pretty much use my RH for everything except writing and eating with a knife and fork.

Lefties are supposed to be more creative (as we use our right side of the brain more...or something) so you might fancy buying DC an easel and some paints. You could have the next Picasso or Banksy!!!

I am a leftie for everything apart from scissors. It took a while but i learnt to cut right handed. I'm so glad I did because although LH scissors are often available in schools these days, they aren't common elsewhere e.g. offices or other people's houses. Much more useful to be cake to use rh ones.

your DD, me and Leonardo da Vinci, camdancer (and evidently loads of mumsnetters!!... not to mention, Barack Obama, Prince William, Angelina Jolie, Paul Macartney, Matt Dillon...etc....etc.)

the only other thing i would add to the below list, is colouring books... there used to be a great shop in Soho in London (not sure if it's still there these days) called the Left Handed Shop, that sold lefthanded cheque books and address books (as well as scissors, measuring jugs, pouring ladles etc), and i suppose colouring books would be the kid version of that. i'm sure you could find them online

the fountain pen thing is a bitch! not only smudging, but u also usually bend the nib by trying to push it across the page.

i did the mirror writing thing for a while apparently...

it's cool to be a leftie... like someone else said - more creative :)

If you are teaching her something, eg tying shoelaces, knitting, things that involve handedness, teach her by mirroring... Don't sit beside her to show her, sit opposite. It means you can do things right handed and she will still automatically be able to follow them left handed.

Ooh Dharma that's a good tip. Think DS is left handed, only 18 months but hell pass everything preferentially to his LH.

I'm left handed and trying to teach my DD, who is right, to tie her shoe laces is a problem.

You have to use a lefty bow in archery
The bow you use is decided by which eye is dominant, not which hand you use.

There are some good pens available like the stabilo smove for left handers.

DD is left handed and i am become more and more left handed as I get older for some reason.