From: abd0@gte.com (Alvah Davis)
Newsgroups: misc.kids
Subject: Re: Am I Forcing Her to Be Left Handed?
Date: 31 Jul 92 15:29:30 GMT
Distribution: usa

mbb@keps.kodak.com (Maureen Busch) writes:

>In article <1992Jul29.215344.4775@cgrg.ohio-state.edu> frankie@osc.edu (Frankie Harris) writes:
>>When I hand my daughter something (a toy, her spoon with food on it so 
>>she can feed herself, etc.), I use my right hand. I automatically place
>>whatever I have into the hand directly across from mine, which would be
>>her left hand since she is usually facing me.
>...
>>So, I am wondering...have I unknowingly been forcing/strongly suggesting/en-
>>couraging my daughter to use her left hand over her right? 

>Relax!  My husband and I are both right-handed, and have both treated both of
>our sons the same, although I can't honestly recall how I handed things to
>them.  I assume I was consist, though.  Anyway, we have a confirmed rightie and
>an almost definite leftie (he's almost 4 and is showing strong preference for
>left).  You might want to try holding things just far enough from her that
>she can make the initial grab with whichever hand she prefers, and then you
>can help make sure she has a secure hold on it.  That way you can be sure that
>she is following her own preference instead of being patterned by you.
>-- 
>Maureen Busch				|Small world, but I wouldn't want to
>Internet: mbb@keps.kodak.com		|paint it - Steven Wright

I have four-year-old identical, nonmirror-image twin daughters.  I'm a mix of
right-handed (for writing, other dexterity-requiring things), left-handed
(scissors, mainly), and ambidextrous (almost everything).  My daughter Sarah
is right-handed.  My daughter Charlotte is left-handed for writing (she's been
drawing forever that way, and writing since she was 3 1/2), right-handed for
scissors, and generally left-handed for almost everything else.  As a
parent of twins, I'm always on the lookout for equality for my two children
(who, despite being monozygotic twins, are, while equally charming, still
very different people).  So, given my own experience with unusual handedness,
I worried about Charlotte's emerging left-handedness for a while.  At two
years of age, she was generally preferring to use her left hand for feeding
herself.  Her pediatrician, when asked about hand-dominance, said, first, to
avoid any attempt to influence, second, to give equal opportunity, and, third,
generally to forget about it.  For awhile I alternated placing silverware
to the left and to the right of the girls' plates.  Sarah almost always ate
with her right hand, Charlotte with her left.  By their third birthdays,
they were confirmed in their handedness, and I found I'd long since stopped
worrying about it.  

I think our pediatrician was right when she said to forget about it.  One
wants everything to be easy for one's children, and it was difficult to avoid
worrying about the slight impediment lefthandedness imposes, but as I think
back on it, it's of so little consequence (and imposing unnatural handedness 
is of such great consequence, potentially) that ignoring it during the
period when it's being determined is the best idea.

Alvah Davis, GTE Laboratories
Newsgroups: misc.kids