Think my 4 year old might be left handed?

[Leish]

My 4 year old son (reception year) can't decide what hand he is. Apparently he's one of the last ones in his class to be showing non-preference and he struggles with his writing and drawing. Neither teacher nor I are unduly worried as he is still young and boys fine motor skills are behind girls. He's also ahead with everything else and is well-behaved and friendly etc (so a plus there!).

I'm wondering that he might be left-handed, as he does show some left preferences when catching, kicking a ball, trying to play guitar. When he tries to write he starts with his left and turns the page on it's side and sometimes upside down. When he turns it back it's usually correct! Has anyone else got a little left-hander and what can I do to help him if he is? Surely he's got to learn to write differently? Haven't had chance to talk to his teacher about it yet to see if she has some tips, so thought I'd try on here too. Thanks!

thanks, Sarah! (It's me, btw - Ingrid! Sorry!) I just tried it with him, we had a couple of both hands points, one or two left and the rest right.

Hmmmmmm.! I suspect a midline crossing issue. I will try him again on LH writing and see how he does. Is it too late to reverse an unhappy RHer?

Just a couple of things to add:-

DD (8) is strongly left-handed & has some fine motor skills weakness. She has LH equipment for scissors, rulers, tripod pencils, fountain pen and pencil sharpener. The one thing she really cannot do is use a normal pencil sharpener - she ruined all her pencils like this before we discovered the LH version! However, she is very creative & is brilliant at languages too.

I am LH too. I find a normal violin an advantage over right-handers as I do all the finger movements with my left-hand while my right only moves the bow. Could never see the point of LH stringed instruments as I think they are left-handed anyway.

Problems for me are mainly as others have described, with the addition of screws and lightbulb fixings. DH has never understood why I can't do them!

we are mentally agile and fab at tennis.

you can let your ds just do what feels right iyswim - sometimes even now i don't know what hand to use unitl i pick something up as i use left and right almost equally.

Dd and ds both lefties. Dd writes a couple of numbers backwards but can use either left or right handed scissors well and hand writing lovely. She's five. Ds two so early to tell. We have no left handed equipment at home.

Am finding it tricky to teach her to knit - all seems backwards to me as a right handed person!

Oh... And she does ticks with the upward strike pointing to the left too when playing schools. Have had left handed colleagues so know that is common practice.

Everett/Ingrid
From what you said - but really difficult to say without observing, I wouldn't have thought that he would be left-handed. Could be a mid-line crossing issue though? Brain gym exercises where you cross the mid-line may be helpful (ones such as cross crawl, lazy 8s and c buttons). If you think it is a particular issue, ask your GP to refer you to an occupational therapist who will hopefully be able to assess what is going on. I wouldn't try getting him to write LH unless he seems really much more comfortable and natural when you suggest it.

Thankyou very much indeed, Sarah (snd sorry for hijack, OP!)

Tried writing left handed yesterday and he is really good at it! Much better than I am and he doesn't seem to find it a problem.

I might try encouraging both...it's hard to know what to do really.

I will have another look at those midline crossing exercises.