Handedness - DD 4.1 shows no preference. Teacher says 'nudge her' before 5.

[llandb]

DD is 4.1 and hasn't yet shown a hand preference. She flips and flops and experiments with both, pretty equally. In contrast, her younger brother has been an obvious rightie since about ten months.

The teacher at the school we'll probably send DD to says that she has to be nudged into choosing a hand for writing by the time she starts school. Where we are (NZ), this is on a child's fifth birthday.

So we have 11 months to hope DD morphs into a leftie or rightie of her own accord. Most of what I've read suggests it's likely that she will have a handedness by the time she's five. But what if she doesn't?

The teacher stressed that this applied only to writing and not to other activities. Is she up with it, or hopelessly out of date? Anyone have thoughts as to whether this is good or bad policy? I can see pros and cons to both sides.

Pro to choosing - can crack on with developing writing skills. Con - going against natural grain.

I can't see why you need to. Leave it to her to pick up a pencil when she starts school. Maybe she is like my DS, writes with his left and plays all sports like tennis with his right.

If she's not bothered, I'd encourage right hand for writing- practically speaking it'll be easier for her ( an with scissors too). Otherwise just let her pick.

We had to do this with Ds last year before he started school as it was affecting his fine motor skills and hand eye Co ordination.

We decided to encourage use of the right hand as when compared he seemed to have slightly better grip when holding a pencil and now he automatically goes to right but does switch occasionally when doing homework etc so the ability is still there but his writing is definitely better on the right.

No need to choose for her. Perhaps she'll love drawing and writing and do it so much she gets good with both hands. Probably she'll start to favour one and should be left to work that out for herself. I'm sure there's some research about forcing someone to use a hand they're not naturally inclined to. I think it affects how the brain develops. Google it. I just did but haven't time to read all the things that came up, sorry!

Regarding the NZ teacher thing. We're in NZ too and, like teachers all over the world, the ones here don't actually know everything! I'm not decrying the expertise of many teachers at teaching but it doesn't make them experts on issues of handedness or brains. However, they should know that all children develop at very different rates from each other, and at such a young age the differences can be very marked and there is a lot of development going on very quickly.

Let your DD lead the way and don't let anyone make the decision on what is an intrinsic part of how she functions.

I use my left and right hands for different things. Write right handed, but, bizarrely canoe and bowl left handed. I also would brush my teeth with my right hand, but hair with left hand.

I'd provide her with lots of pens, chalks, paint brushes etc, and let her develop the fine control. Also consider writing in the sand with sticks etc.

Thanks, everyone! There seem to be cogent points on both sides :)

I should have said in the OP that I'm a natural leftie, who was (relatively easily) converted to right-handed writing. So I know that it's a mixed blessing (and it turned out well for me but doesn't for many).

talkingnonsense scissors are the one thing we do try to encourage DD to use her right hand for :) Several of my southpaw friends are right-handed scissor-users - often there is no choice.

Homebird we're in Dunedin

I've done a bit of googling, as suggested - and I also really like those suggestions about giving her more opportunity to develop fine motor skills.

I think I'll have a word with her kindergarten teachers as well (that's NZ preschool). There does seem to be a prevailing assumption that everyone is a northpaw, and it has just occurred to me that they may be pushing her that way, so I'll ask them not to :)

nextphase She has really only just started to move on from scribbling and painting blobs, and I had wondered whether it was because of lack of fine motor control due to hand confusion. She resists encouragement to try other shapes, perhaps just stroppiness. So we've just started giving her more in the way of puzzles that require fine motor control - the sort where you have to draw a connecting line, join the dots, that sort of thing. She seems to be taking to that with both hands, so we'll see where that leads. I like the sand idea, too.

Thanks again, everyone (and I'll put the hard word on kindy teachers not to push, in case that is happening)

Actually, now you say it, she might be using both because she's naturally left and being encouraged right?

I leaned to use RH scissors because when I was growing up school didn't have LH ones but I'm otherwise very LHed. Some things are a matter of fitting in though.

For example, With a computer I don't understand why RHers use a mouse in their RH and the keyboard is on the left. If you're RHed wouldn't you want the trickier thing (the keyboard) near your RH? Same goes for cutlery, wouldn't you want to be doing the tricky manipulation required for the fork with your RH if you were RHed?

I think you're right to get everyone to let her work it for herself for a good while. You know that being LHed isn't as much of a problem as the righties think!