When will (?should!) my 4yr old son decide on his handedness?

[timetosmile]

Bright, chatty little chap, great gross motor skills, good fine motor e.g. lego, not keen on sitting and colouring in(!) has been at nursery class for 3 terms now.

Does lego, rolls dice/moves counters with LH. Scoots on his scooter left footed.

Brushes teeth, turns on taps, opens doors, kicks balls with either.

Scissors with right hand.

Given a choice from a 'neutral' position, will tend to choose RH (70% time)for writing, uses paintbrush in either.

So....when should he firm up his ideas!!

None of us in the family are lefties and I'm not pushy either way, but a teacher friend said "He'll have to have it sorted for reception..."

Just wondering what any other early years folks have to say...thanks!

My cousin is/was ambidextrous, her parents just asked her to pick which hand she wanted to write with over the summer before she started school. She picked left, but can happily use eg scissors with her right hand (a great bonus, from what I understand!).

Wouldn't it be better to encourage him to write with his right hand if he could choose either? I always get the impression that being lefthanded can make life a bit more challenging as the world is designed for righthanded people. If he could write righthanded he would not have the whole awkward "where to put his hand" thing. I don't mean to offend any lefties here, but it would just seem easier.

Scissors are handed, so it makes sense that he uses his right with them as the blades overlap in the wrong direction to use most scissors left handed. I'd quite like some lefthanded nail scissors as cutting my right hand with righthanded scissors is quite hard.

Breathes, I think you're right..maybe I've just heard too many stories of predominantly lefties being forced into conformity with poor results.

"Development of hand preference or dominance can occur from an early age and is usually established between 3-4yrs. This means one hand consistently acts as the ?doer? hand while the other hand acts as the ?helper? hand. Some children may not demonstrate a hand dominance until about 7yrs, and may swap hands during school tasks e.g. writing, drawing, using scissors".

I think "encourage" and "force" are very different things, I certainly wouldn't push a lefthanded child to write with their right hand.

My daughter is 3.11 and has only just started to show a preference for which hand to use in the last 6wks or so.

Painting (at easel standing up) & eating she uses her right hand

Sissors & writing/drawing or painting at table/desk she uses her left hand.

I would let him decide in his own time. My DD1 (yr 3) has a girl in her class who uses both hands. Hasn't effected her schooling.

DS started school ambidextrous, I don't think he really settled on mostly left for writing until after his 6th birthday. Still uses scissors & few other things right handed.

I started writing mainly with my right hand in year 2. Before then it was whichever hand I picked the pencil up in.
I now usually will use my right hand, but can write fine with my left.

DS age still uses both hands for most tasks, depending on what he is doing -though he writes 60/40 with his left hand.

I have seen LH take a long time to establish. I have a child (reception) who writes with LH on the LH side of a book and RH on the RHS. Logical really ....

my ds was still using both hands when he started Reception (and he was almost 5 when he started). His teachers said it wasn't a problem and that he would decide in his own time. However, they did draw line at him using both hands simultaneously! By the end of that year he was using his right hand with the correct pencil grip all the time. He does have problems with both fine and gross motor skills though and we have left handedness in the family. His still finds writing hard work I'm afraid.

riversidemum DS still does that, he is in yr1!

Just wanted to add that it is oossible to be totally right-handed and totally left-footed, as my DS is. So the fact that your DS kicks a ball and scooters with his left foot should make no difference to his final hand preference.

My ds's reception teacher said a lot of children haven't decided when they start reception, and some still not by the time they leave reception!

ds is 10 and he uses a pencil in his right hand and a biro/fountain pen in his left. We have never been told it is a issue