Can you normally tell if they are going to be left or right handed by 3?

[blueteddy]

My DS2 (just turned 3) seems to always favour his left hand & always seems to hold a pen in his left hand when drawing.
Do you think it is a pretty sure bet that he is going to be left handed, or is it still quite early to tell?
My family seem quite concerned that he appears left handed & when I told a friend yesterday that he is using his left hand, her response was "Oh dear...well I guess he will make up for it in personality!"
Is it really such a disadvantage in life to be left handed?

I'm left handed and for ages thought my dd aged 3 was going to be too as she did most things including eating and drawing with her left hand. Now though she is slowly switching to her right hand.

my dp 2 daughters aged 4 and 2 are very definetely lefties and he said you could tell very very early with them.

I'm sure I read somewhere (correct me if i'm wrong) that you should never force a child to use thier unpreferred hand as it can cause problems such as stammers and so on.

I will tell my BIL that if he ever tries to force him to use his right hand again, sheepgomeep!
I feel pretty sure DS2 will be a left hander.

at your friend blueteddy, what a knobish and rude thing to say. I am a leftie and I have beauty and intelligence as well as personality

i am left handed, and when i was at primary school i had to sit in a 'special' place with a red star on the desk, so i did not knock any of the right handed people's arms! So nice! I had a big red sticker on my drawer aswell, so everyone knew i was left handed!
But apart from that im fine! (i hope!)
x

Oh my goodness, koshka! Cannot believe the school stuck a red star on your desk to stop you knocking the right handed people! You must have felt a real outcast - it's a wonder you are not scared for life!!

My 3 were totally ambidextrous until they started school - I guess the just decided to go with the flow and the older 2 are now firmly right-handed. DS#2 is still only 3 so happily using both hands for everything.

My mother has always claimed that I was right handed until I copied my left handed brother at the age of 5. I'm not sure about this as I loathed my brother in childhood (I love him now!).

I am only left handed for writing, everything else is right. My writing is quite creative though!

DD (2.2) looks to be similar. DS (3.9) is definitely right - no doubt at all.

I really dont understand what is wrong with being left handed - my DS1 is 2.9 and does everything with his left hand - it doesnt bother me and I wouldnt try to change it, what difference does it make anyway? really? Some people are very strange in their thinking.

My ds1 is left handed and my father actually noticed him favouring his left hand when he was very little - maybe 2 months old. I know left and right handedness isn't determined by then, but it was very obvious with ds1 that he preferred his left hand. But surprisingly, he now does a lot with his right hand simply because he gets taught by right handed people and he is too shy to correct them, eg he plays tennis right handed.

I think ds3 who, like your son blueteddy, is also 3, is also left handed as I have noticed he always draws and takes things with his left hand. The thought of him being left handed does not worry me at all - I cannot understand why it should be a problem. I actually proud to have 2 left handed children and 2 right handed children!

My DH and i are both left handed. When i was a child, my mum always set my cutlery as if for a right handed person, os always use it that way when eating, however, will put my glass/cup etc on left side. I use scissors right handed, however, both DH and i iron with our left hand, which come find strange, and he plays golf with his left hand. Our DS2 is left handed for everything, and DS1 is right handed, when ds1 was very small he used both hands, and it wasn't until he started school that he started favouring his right There was never a problem at school for us, and there isn't a problem with DS2, although if he is using felt pens, he tends to get his hand covered in the ink.

My DS is left handed too Blueteddy, people have made comments to me too that he will probably be "behind" and it can be quite maddening. He is also left footed and is great with a football. He has learnt to use a mouse on the computer with his right hand though as this is wear we keep the mouse and he seems to have adjusted to using it this way.

He's almost 4 and we noticed it when he first started using a fork as he always favoured his left hand. Not sure why as there is not one person in either DP or myself's family who are left handed.

I'm a proud leftie, and desperately wanted my children to be.

Sadly left handed children have a statistically higher chance of suffering from mild dyslexia. It's all to do with the way the left and right hand sides of the brain interprets and processes visual messages. However, lefties have far better spacial awareness (see leftie game on web address below)

To buy anything for lefties try \link{www.anythingleft.co.uk\Anything Left}

Essential Buys
Scissors: Pencil sharpener: Playing cards

Sports
Good for all racket sports and rounders/cricket (in the latter, the fielders stand for a right handed hitter!) but rubbish for ice skating or roller disco. The skaters all skate anti clockwise is far easier for right handers than lefties.

Living With A Leftie
I can only safely use an iron where the cord comes directly out of the middle and not spouting from one side !

My family have to live with me hanging up all their clothes left handed with the coat hangers facing the wrong way!
I place cups and often used items in left hand cupboards in preference to right hand ones
My window blinds are all made with the pully to the left
My family have all learnt to use a mouse in their left hand (buttons still programmed for a righthander) when at my desk.

Being A Leftie Is Good Because ...*
There are no fights with hubby over which side of the bed we prefer :-)
I prefer having a colleague sitting to my left in a meeting - or other written information sharing type scenario

Things That Drive Lefties Mad
Any ticket barrier system (tube, trains etc) ALL RIGHT HANDED this includes swipe card systems in buildings ... always placed to the right.

Computer keypads - computers were mainly invested by lefties, WHY is the keypad on the right
Office desks - often set up right handed and PC shifting never goes down well on the your first day !

... Kaloo20

BTW in my class at school there were 13 girls, 6 of us were lefties !

With ds we knew very very early that he was right handed.
With dd I wasn't certain by 3. She was good with both hands although writing and drawing were better with her right. Even now she is pretty ambidextrous, and uses her cutlery the opposite hands (she's 8)

Forgot to say dh is left-handed and never felt in any way that it was a disadvantage. He has never used any left handed gadgets either.

Ds2 is 3.5 and at the moment is totally ambidextrous and writes and colours equally well with either hand. I'm thinking I should see dominance by 4 if he is going to develop it at all.

Wow, my first thread to make it to the home page - how exciting!!

Thanks for all the positive replies. Being left handed certainly doesn't seem to hold any of you/your children back in any way & it is always good to be that little bit different!

I seem to have one of each! Ds1, showed left handed tendancies from a very young age and I just went with it, he is obviously meant to be left handed. My youngest ds, 22 months, is almost certainly right handed, again, he has shown this tendancy from a very young age, a couple of months old. I am proud to have a leftie in my family.

I haven't read the whole thread, but I can't believe anyone would say "oh dear" because a child is left handed. It is in now way any handicap at all. My husband is left handed, he has a degree, a PhD and is now a high flying IT business consultant for a huge global IT company (not Microsoft...!!). He doesn't use any left handed gadgets either, and it's an advantage playing tennis or squash against a right hander!! Our DS shows signs of being left handed (prefers to eat with left hand), and I don't care - It is a nineteenth century prejudice that says left handed is wrong. what a load of twaddle.
I saw someone said left handers are more likely to suffer from mild dyslexia - I don't know if this is true or if it's just one of those coincidences. However, I have heard that there are more left handed geniuses than right handed ones.
don't worry about it!

My son is 4 1/2 and he still uses both hands. He colours 1 side of a pic with one hand, then switches! Both DH and I are left handed.

Theres a website

www.anythingleft-handed.co.uk/

They know a LOT about lefthandedness, and I asked them the same question. Apparently it can take up to the age of 6!

I love being left handed

DD 13 months looks to be using her left hand more than her right. DH and i are right handed though.
My dad is another one of these poor souls who were forced to use their right hand (left hand was tied to the chair at school!) - his spelling is very poor and though he doesn't stutter, he has terrible difficulty pronouncing words which are new to him - it's like a sound version of bad spelling (the sounds are all there but in the wrong order), so i would say, don't let anyone mess with which hand your DS wants to use.