Should I encourage DS to pick a dominant hand

[CCW14]

DS (3.5) will constantly use both left and right hand for things like drawing and cutting, but because he doesn’t practise with just one hand, and only draws/colours occasionally, neither hand is particularly ’great’. He doesn’t like being wrong, or not being able to do things, so ends up getting frustrated when he can’t colour/draw/write.

Should I encourage him to pick one hand? Or just let him figure it out themselves.

Leave him be, any "encouragement" could skew his set dominant hand or he may be ambidextrous.

You can encourage tasks that improve fine motor skills - e.g. lego/beads/etc.

Nope, just leave him to use as he prefers. My DS was ambidextrous at 4 but then started to prefer his RH. DH is fully ambidextrous...no issues, past annoying the other team when swapping his hand to bat at cricket!

Ds used both. Nursery asked could they encourage right hand. Visions of my best mate's dm being abused as a dc for using her left flashed into my mind. Imagine such a practice? Ds is right handed. Went on to have 2 lefties after that!

Let him work it out.
My DD was the same. I always just put cutlery, pens, pencils etc on the table in front of her so she could pick them up without any interference.
By the time she started school she used cutlery 'correctly', always used her right hand for writing/drawing but always chose to use scissors in her left hand.
Now an adult she still uses her left hand for many things - holds a tennis racquet, plays many sports in a more LH way. She can also swap from one to another if a situation makes one way seem easier.

He'll get there.

Thanks! I would be perfectly happy for him to grow up being ambidextrous. I remember being so jealous of my friend in exams who would swap hands when one hand started aching, whilst I was having to stop and shake until I got feeling back in my right hand

just don’t like seeing him struggle and get so frustrated, but I know he is still little so will leave him to figure it out himself

I asked my daughters preschool about this as at 3.5 she was completely ambidextrous, but what I noticed was that when forming letters with her right hand she did them correctly, left they were mirror imaged (so d was a b but formed the way you form d!)

they said some children do have a dominant hand and some don’t at that age and to let her carry on with both. Now at 4.5 she seems to be more of a leftie (and still mirror imaging letters at times 🤦‍♀️). But still does use right at times!

I agree with those saying to leave it and watch and wait. He will probably work it out for himself. I also agree with those saying to give him lots of fine motor control play.
You also want to encourage shoulder stability as this is needed for writing, so things like wheelbarrow races, games where he pushes himself away from the wall with hands at shoulder height, playing "going to the gym" and pretend "push ups" obstacle races where he has to crawl etc.

The only other thing I would say is to keep an eye on when he uses which hand. It is too early to say now, but when he is older, if he is consistently using his left hand for items that are closest to his left side and vice versa for his right, he might have problems with "crossing the midline" ( issue caused by weaker connection between left and right side of his brain) which can then lead on to reading and writing problems. This is a big if though.

Did he crawl as a baby or bottom shuffle/go straight to standing and walking.

If he didn't crawl try and get him to play as many crawling games as possible now as this can strengthen the left right brain connection ( left arm moves with right knee and vice versa)

I never had a really strongly dominant hand, to the extent that when my hand writing with my right hand was substandard at 7 my mum spent a summer seeing if it would be better with my left if I focussed on it (it wasn't, in time I had lovely writing). Weirdly, I am better with left handed things like scissors or bottle openers than DH who is left handed - he says its because my brain is very plastic about things wheras he is so strongly left handed that once he had to learn to use the 'wrong' things he couldn't relearn.
My grandmother was fully ambidextrous and could swap hands writing on a blackboard seamlessly from left to right. She spent a very long time in hospital as a small child and reckoned that this let her just get on with things and not be told off for it

I think his strength is fine. The problem is keeping him from climbing and hanging off things and pushing off the wall. Sometimes he will see myself or DH doing exercises and will copy

also dont think he is picking the hand that is closest to the object, as from what I have seen it isn’t always the case that it’s closest or often he will switch hands over and over whilst doing a task when he gets bored/tired of one hand

That's all good then. In that case I'd concentrate on getting him to do lots of fine motor tasks like Lego etc