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Parents of leftys - when did they show a preference?


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All my first 5 kids are right handed and didn't show a clear hand preference til they were about 3. DD#6 is only 12.5 months and when she picks things up she very, very often transfers them to her left hand to use them (blocks, etc). Is this coincidence or is it possible she is already showing a hand preference? Is that a lefty thing?

A related question - if she is a lefty, are there any specific resources I need to be looking at down the road that will help her with school and fine motor skills? 

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DD11 showed preference before 1 year (maybe by 9 months). If I tried to hand something to her right side, she reached across her body and used her left hand.

She has had no fine motor skills issues, but I did find that I needed to reinforce the correct tracking direction more than with my other kids.

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36 minutes ago, Momto6inIN said:

A related question - if she is a lefty, are there any specific resources I need to be looking at down the road that will help her with school and fine motor skills? 

I borrowed this book from the library, and found it very helpful: https://smile.amazon.com/Your-Left-Handed-Child-left-handers-right-handed/dp/0600628760/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=left-handed+child&qid=1588768463&sr=8-2

DS8 started showing a preference early, maybe around 18 months. DS3 is also showing signs of being left-handed, but it is not so clear as DS8 was.

 

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From what I recall, my dd seemed to switch back and forth between hands all along, although to be honest, I can't remember what all of her right-handed older siblings did.  As it turns out my dd is sort of ambidextrous.  Well, she doesn't fit the description perfectly because she doesn't use both hands equally.  But she uses her left hand for writing, cutting, and eating, and she uses her right hand for most other things  (for example, holding a tennis racket, grabbing on to things, painting).

The one tip I have is to make sure you get her a good pair of scissors, ones that are specifically designed for lefties.  I got ones that were supposed to be for both right-handed and left-handed people, and I couldn't figure out why her cutting always looked so awkward!  Finally in high school (!) we bought a really nice pair of left-handed only scissors.  What a difference that made!  I couldn't believe I waited so long.

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DD11 plays violin very well now, using what is considered a righty-violin (which is what all children use, though adults sometimes learn on a lefty-violin). I've wondered what sort of brain changes happen due to the extensive use of her right hand for that.

Emily

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17 minutes ago, J-rap said:

 

The one tip I have is to make sure you get her a good pair of scissors, ones that are specifically designed for lefties.  I got ones that were supposed to be for both right-handed and left-handed people, and I couldn't figure out why her cutting always looked so awkward!  Finally in high school (!) we bought a really nice pair of left-handed only scissors.  What a difference that made!  I couldn't believe I waited so long.

Yes! My good childhood friend told me how relieved she was when her kindergarten teacher gave her a pair of lefty scissors and she learned that there was nothing wrong with her hands!

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1 minute ago, EmilyGF said:

Yes! My good childhood friend told me how relieved she was when her kindergarten teacher gave her a pair of lefty scissors and she learned that there was nothing wrong with her hands!

Lucky girl, she got them in kindergarten!  My dd didn't get hers till high school!!  Fortunately my dd has a sense of humor and laughs about it whenever she tells the story to someone else.  🙂 

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My daughter had trouble using some computer mice and also has had trouble when the wire is too short to place it on the left side of the computer.  
 

My MIL noticed her using her left hand when she was a baby.  Probably she was 9-10 months?  My husband and I had not noticed.  

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I have just taught her to crochet a little, and she has to do it backwards from me, and I was trying to make her do it the same way as me.  Oops. 
 

Also for tying her shoes (I think?) she watched a YouTube video and I think it might have been for left-handed?

She knows now to say something to me, the computer mouse was something where neither of us realized that was the issue, so it was pretty frustrating to her.  

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My daughter’s gymnastics teacher had her do some things opposite, also.  I think her lead foot was opposite.  
 

She does use silverware opposite too and uses her opposite hand to use a knife.  
 

It is an extra step with anything like that to show her or help her, because my husband or I have to figure out how to do it with opposite hands.  

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Around pre-school it started coming up that she might need to tell a Sunday School teacher or someone she was left-handed, if I was not there. Sometimes there might be a craft or something she would need to do the opposite way, and I would not always be there.  She would not always want to say something to her teacher.  That is something that we worked on with her.  It didn’t come up a lot, but sometimes she would need to say she was left-handed to be shown a different way or explain why she was doing something opposite.  Few people will remember if you tell them once at the beginning of the year, or think of it with random things.

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Mine showed a strong preference by four months old- five months old when she began tasting some solids. She clearly used her left hand to guide the spoon into her mouth, and has never wavered to using the right. 

I wondered what differences we'd encounter, but we've had no issues. She learned to hold a crayon, draw, write her name, and cut about the same ages as everyone else. And she's never needed a special pair of scissors. 

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Oh the one thing I've seen is during writing or doing workbook pages- her inclination is to start on the right side of a letter she's writing or row of problems she's working on. I do need to reinforce starting on the left side of the page in reading, writing, a little more than I did my others. 

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Two of my kids are lefties. I don't really remember noticing till age 3 or so.  We haven't had too many difficulties.  I can write a bit with my left hand, so when I was teaching them to write I'd just pick up the pencil in my left hand and see how I did it, which was a big help.  The right-handed mouse issue didn't even occur to me until last year; neither of my lefties had any problem using a right-handed mouse - my oldest even games that way.

I tried to teach my lefties to crochet right-handed (so they'd not have to flip patterns around), but my oldest had problems and my youngest automatically switched to using his left hand; I'll probably see if my oldest does better crocheting left-handed.  I taught my oldest right-handed knitting (ditto pattern reasons), but she's never persisted enough to know whether handedness is an issue or not.  I can crochet left-handed, a bit, but I don't even know where to start wrt knitting left-handed, so that will be fun if dd13 wants to try it.

ETA: Because of this thread, all my kids have spent the past 10 minutes trying to write and draw with their off hands, lol.  They are all actually pretty decent - they can all produce legible print (albeit a bit wobbly and slanting down the page), and those who've learned cursive can produce legible cursive.  My lefties actually did better at drawing with their right hands than my righty did with her left hand - not as good as with their left, but plenty serviceable.

Edited by forty-two
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My daughter was young when she had trouble with the computer mouse.  She was doing Reading Eggs and (we eventually noticed) would end up reaching across with her left hand and trying to use her pinky to click with.  
 

I think she is okay now to use a mouse with her right hand.  We also have a more plain mouse now, that is easier to click.  
 

 

Edited by Lecka
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I think I had worked on tying shoes with my daughter off and on for over a year, and she did it correctly within about 20 minutes of watching the YouTube video.  Then for about a month I would hold the video for her while she tied her shoes watching it.  Then she learned.

She mostly can’t adjust to using her right hand.  
 

She mostly can’t watch something done right-handed and then figure out on her own how to do it left-handed.

But she does everything well with her left hand.  
 

I also have a very hard time adjusting to do things left-handed to show her.  It is easier for my husband.  I managed with crochet, but I was afraid I might have to look for a video.  

It was night and day for her to use her left hand.  She could basically not do it right handed, and then she started picking it up pretty easily once I did try to reverse it.  That is typical for her.  
 

As far as I know she is dominant left for everything.  

It really only comes up once in a blue moon.  I had forgotten all about it with crochet, or I would have realized it in the first place.  
 

 

 

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I'm very intentional with my babies to hand them things in the center and let them grab with whatever hand they choose. My two lefties both grabbed things with their left more often than their right from infancy. I still waited until they were 3 or 4 before declaring handedness though. All 4 of my other kids and parents are right handed. I taught myself to write with my left hand so I could teach handwriting to my lefties. They learned to cut with righty as well as lefty scissors.

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My lefty (almost 9) showed his preference very, very early, easily by a year.  Most of my babies went back and forth between the two, but my lefty did not.  He would reach across his body with his left hand to get a spoon plunked into the right side of his bowl, rather than move it with his right, things like that, consistently.  (Interestingly, my current 17mo will do exactly the opposite with his right hand.)

 

I bind his notebooks on the right with my proclick, and he has lefty scissors.  We typically arrange for him to sit where he is not right next to a righty.  I know not everything will accommodate him in life, and he will need to adapt, but in the meantime, we do what we can for him.  He tends to be a bit shy, so I let co-op teachers know he is a lefty, but when he went to art class, he felt pretty cool to take his own special scissors to leave there. 😉

Edited by happypamama
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I never really paid attention to which hand was being used when they were little.  I started to pay a bit of attention when DD was in preschool.  One of the things they noted in her annual report we got was that she used both hands, slightly favoring the left.  When she started Kindergarten at home, she would switch back and forth with hands.  I eventually asked her to choose one, and she went left.  She still uses both hands for a lot of things, but is a bit better at fine work with her left hand.  My youngest also used both hands when he was young but eventually went with his right hand.

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My middle child is a lefty.  It was evident very early on, only a couple of months old.  She always reached with her left, moved things from her right to her left, used her pincher fingers on the left, etc.  My other two, who are right handed, didn't show a preference until between one and two and even then it wasn't as strong as my lefty.

Some things that make school easier for her. Left scissors - the blades are actually switched so she can see where she is cutting, and she uses her spiral bound notebooks backwards or prefers loose leaf paper.  Other than that her fine motor skills are great.

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59 minutes ago, happypamama said:

My lefty (almost 9) showed his preference very, very early, easily by a year.  Most of my babies went back and forth between the two, but my lefty did not.  He would reach across his body with his left hand to get a spoon plunked into the right side of his bowl, rather than move it with his right, things like that, consistently.  (Interestingly, my current 17mo will do exactly the opposite with his right hand.)

 

I bind his notebooks on the right with my proclick, and he has lefty scissors.  We typically arrange for him to sit where he is not right next to a righty.  I know not everything will accommodate him in life, and he will need to adapt, but in the meantime, we do what we can for him.  He tends to be a bit shy, so I let co-op teachers know he is a lefty, but when he went to art class, he felt pretty cool to take his own special scissors to leave there. 😉

 

19 minutes ago, rocassie said:

My middle child is a lefty.  It was evident very early on, only a couple of months old.  She always reached with her left, moved things from her right to her left, used her pincher fingers on the left, etc.  My other two, who are right handed, didn't show a preference until between one and two and even then it wasn't as strong as my lefty.

Some things that make school easier for her. Left scissors - the blades are actually switched so she can see where she is cutting, and she uses her spiral bound notebooks backwards or prefers loose leaf paper.  Other than that her fine motor skills are great.

I'm trying to wrap my brain around how this works ... so they turn notebook pages from left to right with the binding on the right? Does that confuse them when normal book pages are turned right to left?

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I am a lefty. Dh is right handed.

Both of our kids are leftys. Clear in Dd from age 3 or 4. Ds is cross-dominant and it took til he was 6 or 7. He writes left handed, but throws a ball right handed. Took him longer to track left to right, to know his right from left etc.

Handwriting Without Tears and New American Cursive were a good fit here. We haven't used any other accomodations. My kids use right handed scissors. 

Edited by ScoutTN
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My youngest is left-handed.  My doctor friend thought he was at about 2 1/2, but he didn’t show clear preference until about 5.  I wonder if she hadn’t been so insistent that he was a lefty if I would have noticed.  He is fairly balanced between hands, but he always cut with his left and is left footed and wrote a bit better with his left.  I tried to give him time to mature, but once he was ready to write for school I decided to have him start with his left and he has done well.  My mom’s sister was left handed and I have one nephew who is left handed. My daughter is left eye dominant and I wonder if I forced her to use her right hand.  She hated writing when she was younger.  My youngest is just now 7 so I haven’t done too much accommodating yet, but I can see bindings being a problem.

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I have two.

The one that is very, very left hand dominant was obviously left handed from infancy.

The other has more mixed dominance - writes and cuts left, throws right and eats right.  He didn't pick a hand for writing until quite late.  4 or 5 I think?  Late enough that I was starting to worry about it.

True lefty scissors have made a big difference for both of them.  Real lefty scissors have reversed blades.  It makes all the difference.

HWOT  is an extremely lefty friendly handwriting program.

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Just a comment on the backwards books.  We don’t do anything with that.

BUT some cartoon books are printed this way, totally backwards, and my daughter has really liked ones she has read that are like that.

I have read maybe two cartoon books like this, and I got used to it quickly.  
 

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https://www.amazon.com/Pokémon-Adventures-Set-Reads-Japanese/dp/1421550067/ref=mp_s_a_1_17?dchild=1&keywords=Pokemon+Books&qid=1588831700&sr=8-17
 

This is an example of a book that does go backwards.  
 

There are books like this I have seen at the library.

I don’t think kids have trouble with it, once they are used to it.  That is my impression.

I wouldn’t think it would be great for a new reader, but for slightly older kids it seems like it is not something that is a problem.  Especially if kids like Pokémon and want to read the books printed this way!

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16 hours ago, Momto6inIN said:

 

I'm trying to wrap my brain around how this works ... so they turn notebook pages from left to right with the binding on the right? Does that confuse them when normal book pages are turned right to left?

No she hasn't ever confused reading, and still writes left to right, probably because she didn't start using notebook paper until about 3rd grade when she was already reading voraciously and writing pretty well.  Prior to that she (and all my kids) used the large lined paper for lower elementary. With spiral bound notebooks, she writes on the backside of the paper.  I usually just have her use loose leaf because she only wants to write on that one side.

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16 hours ago, Momto6inIN said:

 

I'm trying to wrap my brain around how this works ... so they turn notebook pages from left to right with the binding on the right? Does that confuse them when normal book pages are turned right to left?

It doesn't seem to.  He doesn't seem to be confused at all, just appreciates that he doesn't have to write across the binding.

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I love having a lefty. I can’t do ANYTHING with my left hand. It’s like he has a super power!

I bought him lefty scissors pretty early on, but he doesn’t prefer them. I think he just figured out “regular” scissors because that’s what he kept being given away from home.

HWT designs its pages to be lefty-friendly. (You copy words below the sample instead of to the right of the sample.) 

Our only headache has to do with eating out. I always seem to end up sitting on his left. Then we knock elbows for the whole meal.

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#4 is my lefty.  We suspected pretty early on. Way before coloring or writing.  He always transferred things to his left hand.

He had an obsession with taking screws out of all his toys.  By age 3, he was using a screwdriver with his left hand.

We gave him lefty scissors early on, but he still prefers righty scissors at age 12.  He just adjusts the way he holds them.  I got tired of buying different fancy lefty scissors.  I gave up. lol

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On 5/6/2020 at 9:44 PM, ScoutTN said:

I am a lefty. Dh is right handed.

Both of our kids are leftys. Clear in Dd from age 3 or 4. Ds is cross-dominant and it took til he was 6 or 7. He writes left handed, but throws a ball right handed. Took him longer to track left to right, to know his right from left etc.

Handwriting Without Tears and New American Cursive were a good fit here. We haven't used any other accomodations. My kids use right handed scissors. 

I'm a lefty too. My vote is to not get them all kinds of different left handed specific stuff unless they are going to be able to carry it all around with them wherever they go. Honestly as a left hander you just have to adjust to a right handed world. I did have a teacher who taught me more specifically about writing cursive left handed, but other than that I have never used left handed scissors or used a mouse with my left hand. I find I often have to try twice to open some doors etc because my brain thinks things should go the other way. I also learned to knit etc right handed because it was too confusing to try and learn to do some of those things left handedly from a right handed teacher. I am old though, so younger people may not agree with me.

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I remember several years ago asking my lefty if she wanted me to buy her left-handed scissors.  She gave me a strange look and told me that she uses scissors right-handed.  She also eats right-handed.  But anything with a writing utensil is always left-handed.

 

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I think the need for lefty scissors is probably different for different individuals.  My very lefty really struggles with righty scissors.  The crossed reversed blades make an enormous difference for him.  To the point that I keep a pair of blunt-tip lefty scissors in the outings bag for use at the library, scouts, co-op etc.  My other lefty, who had more mixed dominance, prefers lefty scissors but manages just fine with regular righty ones.  He be just fine if lefty scissors didn't exist.  The very-lefty lefty kid, not so much.

Edited by wathe
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On 5/6/2020 at 6:42 AM, Lecka said:


She does use silverware opposite too and uses her opposite hand to use a knife.  

At restaurants, if I put my drinking glass at my left, most servers would switch my silverware for me before the appetizer arrives. 

On 5/6/2020 at 11:07 PM, Lecka said:

Just a comment on the backwards books.  We don’t do anything with that.

BUT some cartoon books are printed this way, totally backwards, and my daughter has really liked ones she has read that are like that.
 

Old Chinese fiction books used to be printed that way. Text goes vertical instead of horizontal too. Kids are fast at adapting. 

The left handers all show left hand dominance early. My side of the family has lots of ambidextrous people and they show their preferred writing hand after 8 years old. Both of mine can write with either hand though they are “officially” right handed. All the left handers can write with both hands because we all went to public school decades ago and just pick up writing with the right hand from the teachers.

We were all using a penknife (blade/utility knife) early for cutting and sharpening pencils so the scissors issue wasn’t so bad. It was hard to find left handed scissors in the 70s. 

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