Calling left handers....

[aloha]

Ds (three and a half and a bit dyspraxic) is looking more and more as if he is left-handed, which is fine (apparently geniuses are more likely to be lefties!), but as I'm right handed and so is dh I'm not sure if this might present problems for him, esp as he is a clumsy klutz to start with
So what things would help a left-handed child in your opinion? Special scissors? Knives? Any tricks to make his life easier?
Thanks!

It is also an advantage for smooching with the right-handed majority in later life

pamina, dh loves his left handed cheque book

Hi there - DP and I are both lefties, as is dd and I'm guessing ds will be too!!
I only really write with my left hand and a few other little things, but my right hand is generally my strongest and the one I lead with - I quite often wonder if that is purely because I have adapted to a right handed world!? My biggest annoyance is writing/drawing because left handed people move their hand over what they have just written and smudge it. Apparently left handed people are generally a lot more artistic as they use that side of the brain more - this is definately true of me and dp

I am left handed but only write with my left hand. Everything else I do is right handed but if I played the guitar that would be the Paul McCartney way. Oh, and I hold a spoon in my left.

I am not clumsy and although I don't need left handed scissors, found the fountain pens that were meant to be for left handers useless.

I guess it's a case of seeing how left handed he is.

DD (13m) is looking like a left hander too - can feed herself with a spoon in her left but misses her mouth, holds it upside down in her right. DS is resolutely right but will happily suck both thumbs!

We are definitely brainier though

Aaargh, I certainly didn't mean to imply that left handers are klutzy, only that my ds is - he is probably dyspraxic you see. So he already has problems with scissors and holding a pen etc etc and I wondered if there was anything I could do to ameliorate the possible problems of everything being organised for right-handed folk. Actually, I'm pretty klutzy myself.
I will look for special scissors (he has a terribly weak grip too which doesn't help) and talk to his nursery about helping him when it comes to tracing lines and letters. He's very bright but these things are difficult for him anyway and I wondered if being left-handed made it worse, and it seems from your replies that the answer is a resounding....maybe!

Anything Left Handed

THe London shop is very small, but the stuff in there is fantastic.

They have teaching aids as well.

I'm left handed and eat and write with left hand, no problem. The only difference is that I wear my watch on my right hand and it feels really wrong on the left. Often when people have their watches on their right wrist they're left handed I've found.

ooh yes - left handed cheque books are fab, but don't suppose your ds needs one at this stage..!

I didn't need/use anything especially made for left handed-ness growing up. I agree at school it's easier if you can sit on the left hand side of someone you're sharing a table with, but that's about it really.

Like Elliott I'm not strongly lateralised - eat right handed but write, play sports and all other things left-handed.
Can especially recommend fencing as a sport where you can thorougly discomfit your opponent but he is on the young side for that aloha!
Just thank your collective lucky stars that things have changed so in schools. Some of my primary teachers had clearly been trained in the days when you just enforced right-handedness regardless. I think that kind of cruel strategy has given us southpaws a historic reputation for clumsiness - hardly surprising.
We have a left-handed bread knife for me, otherwise I carve pyramidical slices out of the loaf I manage fine with scissors etc although I have been accosted on trains by grannies on account of my idiosyncratic knitting style.

Right Hand, Left Hand by Chris McManus (academic at UCL) is a good sciencey read on handedness

review of it..
Chris McManus' Left Hand, Right Hand will be of interest to lefties who may have slightly resented the historic association of right-handers as being correct and dextrous (Latin dexter: right-hand side) and left-handers as sinister and gauche (Latin sinister: left-hand side with the heraldic bend sinister indicating illegitimacy). Chris McManus could hardly be more appropriately named (Latin manus: hand) and, as a university professor and one of the world's leading authorities the extraordinary and fascinating intricacies of our fundamental asymmetry. Wherever you look in nature there is asymmetry with an inclination to handedness and, like the law and life, it is almost impossible to be even-handed.
Right Hand Left Hand is a wonderful read, reaching from the fundamental depths of atomic structure (sub-atomic particles called neutrinos are left-handed) and the stuff we are all made of (the DNA double helix has a right-handed twist, although one of its co-discoverers Jim Watson is left-handed) through anatomy (our hearts generally are on our left side) up to Zulus, who reputedly cured any left-handed child's tendency by so scalding the hand so that the child is bound to use the right hand. Whatever your inherited or chosen handedness, there is a surprise and a good story here for the general reader. You will be able to keep family and friends entertained for hours retelling the details, although they might appreciate it more if you just handed round copies of the book since it is over 400 pages long. Accompanied by illustrations, notes, further reading and an excellent index, this is one of the best popular science books of the year.

Does he examine the small number of medical studies linking handedness to maternal smoking bundle? My dsis and I are both the first left-handers in our family for two generations and were born to an enthusiastic pre-Royal College Reports maternal smoker

me and my dad are both left handers but as i grew up, i learnt to do things right handed! I cant use scissors left handed, and i tend to cut things with my right or left depending how i feel. I alsways found it hard at school being the only left hander in my class, and teachers were never sympathetic.... apparently i came out with a comment at primary school along the lines of " its ok for you, you can pull your pen accross the page, i have to pull mine!" I dont think its an issue as young as 3.... good luck though x

Angling paper is important when you are left handed so you don't smudge your work and also you can re-read what you have written. The bottomright hand corner should be angled down into the corner of the desk (hope this makes sense) and when your ds goes to school the teacher needs to thinl about wear to sit him so he doesn't get nudged by other children.

I never noticed that WWW, but I am left handed and wear my watch on the right too .

I am mostly left handed, but do some things in a right handed way. I eat right handed (knife and fork), except I hold a spoon in my left. Things like irorning, brushing teeth, writing (of course) all with left hand; but scissors in the right(wonder why?).

My mum is left handed too and I think I pretty much do as she does. I don't think I am left handed because she is though. Out of my three children, one appears to be left handed, the others are right.

not sure marina, but he's a psychologist so i'd expect him to cover most of the available research. v interesting... (dh rather disappointed btw that neither our girls seem to be southpaws...)

i think it's 10% overall in population, and close relative deffo increases this but not sure how much by

My DD and DS and their cousin are left handed. No one else in the family is which is strange they are!

DD uses scissors in her right hand, when writing, she uses pencil so it doesn't smudge. When she gets older, she will have to use pen so no doubt she will have that problem too.

kid, dh writes "underneath" (a bit like right handed people do) so smudging not an issue

DD's nan, tries to get DD to write above the writing sort of twisting her hand around. Personally I think that way looks weird and uncomfortable. I am just going to see how DD gets on, she is 6.

I'm left handed but do most things r-handed. I eat, use scissors, throw, catch...etc with my right hand. One annoying thing for me (and DH)is the position of the computer mouse-I don't have to swap over the buttons but I do need to move the mouse over to the left hand side! Tried these cordless gadget but didn't have much sucess with them.

I do find it slightly more tricky, when trying to help the kiddies hold their pencil correctly, or cut with scissors...I think sometimes that I should naturally do more left handed but I have tried to adapt over the years.

I heard that if you have two right handed parents the chance of a left handed child is 1/10. One of each and the chance is 1/4. I wonder if you have two left handed parents the chances of a right hander are 1/10 as well or are there other genetic factors? One of my dss is left handed but both dh and self are right handed.