Conference moira::parenting

    I have heard from my pedi and others that children are mostly
    ambidextrous until about 3 or 4 years old.  My daughter  (20 mos) uses
    both hands as you describe.
    
    My nephew is left-handed.  Even his parents weren't really sure if he
    was truly left-handed until his third birthday.  Someone gave him a
    baseball glove, which he loved. He would catch the ball, then take off
    the glove to throw with his left hand.  They exchanged the glove for a
    left-handed one, and that was it!
    
    Also, his grandfather is left-handed.  I have heard it runs in
    families.  Do you have any knowledge of lefties in the family?
    
    
    Mary

   See also... IOSG::LEFT_HANDERS notes conference
   
   re: running in the family... should be interesting if that's true,
   since both my wife and I are left handed.  I'll have to carefully
   watch my 3yr old color next time to see if she has a preference.
   
   - Tom
   

Our son is left-handed, and we noticed it by the time he was about 
18 months.  He has always used his left hand for eating, writing, 
coloring, etc.

It has never caused any real problems, except the first year he
played tee-ball.....he didn't realize that he should stand on the
opposite side of the base to hit until we pointed it out.

Yes, I believe it does run in families.  My wife's father and brother
are both lefties.  In fact, we were at a dinner with my wife's family
last summer and out of 14 people at the table, 7 of them were lefties!!

Frank

Ours switched back and forth several times ... but all three are now
decidedly right handed ...

right handed  Stuart

    I think it's pretty normal for young'uns (1-3) to switch back and
    forth before they settle on the preferred hand.  My oldest always used 
    his right hand for everything.  My middle son used to switch back and 
    forth, but now writes leftie and throws a ball with his right hand.  
    Number 3 (almost 3) uses his left hand for everything.  So out of three 
    boys, two are lefties.  Hubby and I are righthanded and the only lefthanded
    person in both of our families is my dad....

    My son (almost 4) is a leftie.  Ever since he is an infant, he
    prefers left hand than right hand.  My pedi. said leftie usually
    shows preference at an earlier age than righthanded.  My daughter
    (20 months) now also shows sign of a leftie.  It definitely runs
    in the family.  I am a leftie too.
    
    Wendy 

    Ryan, now 3 and 3/4, used his left hand predominantly from about 18
    months on. He now uses it for everything except batting a ball.
    
    Typically dominance of one hand over the other is determined by about
    age 4.
    

    I was always under the assumption that it wasn't hereditary.
    I grew up as the only left handed person in my family.  The
    only other person on my side of the family that's left handed
    is my father's cousin!
    
    My husband is also left handed, without any left handed relatives.
    
    Our 2.5 yr old son has used his right hand consistantly since
    he was 1 yr old.
    
    So much for that lefty pitcher we were grooming to keep us
    comfortable in our old age!
    
    Linda

    For some reason all the men in our family are left handed
    and the women right.  Even my husband is left handed.  My oldest
    daughter is right handed and I am curious to see if my youngest
    daughter will be right handed too.
                                                                   
    Angie

    While kids may seem ambidextrous in their first few years, I have
    *strong doubts* that this is a period of *choosing* handedness. 
    There's brain-hemisphere-dominance, for one thing, which has a strong
    (but not absolute in every case) correlation with handedness.  I am
    defintely of the opinion that handedness (like sexual preference; here's
    a rathole for you :-} ) is "born", not chosen....
    
    My mom is a lefty; she knew enough to hand me objects at my body's
    midline (rather than giving it to one hand or another).  She could tell
    I was a lefty by the time I was a year old.  My daughter was DISTINCTLY
    righthanded by 6 months.
    
    Leslie 

I was under the impression that left-handedness was hereditary but was 
analogous to being a recessive trait, though not truly recessive as, for 
example, blue eyes.  That would explain why a lefty can appear amidst a sea of 
righties, and why two left-handed parents can have a right handed child.

Clay

    
    
    I once read that (this was last fall) that the older the mother the
    better the chances of having a left handed child.  Not that an older
    mother WILL have a lefty, but that the odds get better the older she
    is when she's carrying.  Now, I never know where I read these things
    or get my information, but the chances are real good that when I do
    finally get a chance to read it's either the Union Leader or a parent
    magazine (usually done on the fly).  
    
    In any case, I thought that was an interesting theory.
    
    I have an almost-three year old.  He's does and has done most
    everything as a lefty from very early on (about 6 mos).  He bats
    lefty now too.  
    
    Did anyone else hear about the above theory too?
    
    NF
    

    
    Re. 12>  I have never heard of that theory and can give a disproving
    	     case. My mother had 4 girls and the only lefty is her first
    	     born (not me). 
    
    	     I keep watching my daughter for a "handedness" and haven't
    	     noticed a preference too much yet, though she is starting to
    	     hold her fork in her right hand. She is 13 months old.
    
    Patty

I have two boys; they are both left handed.  My husband and I are both
right.  I don't know hardly any family members that are left handed.  I
believe part of the reason is because people use to discourage children in
school from using their left hand.  In the past 20 years or so, it has
become more accepted to let a child choose which hand they want to use.  As
babies, I never encouraged or discouraged either hand. By three years old we 
knew our first child was going to be left.  We noticed earlier that our second 
child was going to be a lefty. With them just starting to get into sports, I 
tell them to use which ever way is more comfortable for them to use.  One
son bats left and the other bats right.

Having two left handed children has made me realize how many things are 
geared to right handed people.

Sharron (new to this conference)

    
    Re: .1
    
    There are two lefties that I know of in either of our immediate
    families, my oldest sister and my father-in-law.  This goes 
    against the age of mom at birth theory since my mom
    was 25 when my oldest sister was born, then had 3 right-handed
    children.
    
    If I try to hand Kelsey a spoon or fork at mealtime, she will rarely
    accept it with her right, but then switches it to her left hand. 
    Seeing all of the things that she prefers to do with her left hand
    makes it hard to believe that she could really be right-handed, but at
    17 months who knows!
    
    Thanks for all of the replies.  I know there are more obstacles for
    left-handed people, so knowing there is a strong chance she is
    left-handed may help in her early development.
    
    Carol

    re. 13 & .15
    
    As I pointed out in my earlier note (.12?) that it's *not* that an
    older mother *will* have a lefty, but rather, the chances are *higher*
    that that will occur.  I'm really not trying to use this as a forum to
    prove or disprove this theory, but rather share what I've come across
    and ask if anyone else had read this as well.
    
    I have a lefty (almost three) and an almost one year old who is also
    displaying definite leanings toward being a lefty.  I don't know of any
    other people in my or my husband's family who are leftys.  Maybe I'll
    take a survey them the next time we all get together just for kicks.
    
    NF
      

    And on the lighter side, a little left-handed humor.                  
    
    I have an uncredited quote in my office that states:
    
    "If the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body.....
     then only left-handed people are in their right minds!"
    
    Jane (a southpaw of course!)

            Bush, Clinton, and Perot  
    
            Are all left handed.

    It doesn't really matter.  If you are born a leftie, (like me), by the
    time you are in high school you will have become functionally
    ambidexterous (sp?).
    
    When I got to college and ran into a left-handed desk, I didn't know
    what to do with it any more than the right-handers did.
    
    Bob

I, like a previous noter, also read that the older the mother, the more likely 
it is that her child will be left-handed.

And I also read that left- or right-handedness is hereditary, in addition to 
the above.

I read these in some parents' magazine.  I don't think these were "theories",
but that statistics borne these facts out.

Kyra

    Preference for handedness has a genetic or inborn component, but
    it's not deterministic the way something like blue eyes or curly
    hair is.  Environmental accidents can reinforce or change the
    natural preference -- for instance, if a young child has the
    dominant arm in a cast when she's learning to write, she may
    always write with the other arm, and a person who loses an arm or
    hand at a young age doesn't usually have a lot of trouble learning
    to use the other hand.  Or they can just plain be trained to learn
    to use the non-preferred hand.  Most often this is a left-handed
    person learning to use the right hand. 
    
    Schools used to force kids to write with the right hand, so it's
    often very hard to tell what your parents and grandparents might
    have had as a natural preference.  My grandmother says my father
    was left-handed until he went to school at age 6.  You couldn't
    tell by watching him now.  
    
    My youngest has been left-handed from early on, my middle was
    never anything but right-handed, and the oldest didn't express a
    preference until she got to kindergarten and her teacher told us
    that her habit of writing with her right hand on Monday and her
    left hand on Tuesday was interfering with her ability to learn to
    read and write.  She settled on the right, but I think she would
    have preferred the left as easily.  
    
    --bonnie

    I'm one of those kids who really should have been a lefty.... My
    kindegarten teacher had different ideas, and enforced them with a ruler
    to the knuckles!
    
    To this day I do just about everything with  my left hand, except
    writing.  My handwriting is positively awful, something right up there
    with a doctor's handwriting.  
    
    Without sounding gross, someone once told me that the true proff of
    whether you are righty of lefty is proven by which hand you "wipe"
    yourself with.  I'm not sure of the source of this, but if this is
    true, then that make me a "true lefty".
    
    Lyn

      OK Let me put a wrench into some of these theories;-)
    
          Write.....left hand
          Bat/play ball.....right hand
          eat.....left handed
          play guitar....right handed
          To answere -1 note back wipe myself......left handed
    
         Is this common? Or are most people EITHER Right or left handed??
    
                           JOHN

re: .23 - can't decide..

  Without a lot of scientific data to back this up, I'd say that you are
  probably more in line with reality than you think.  From what I've seen,
  even us lefties can learn to do something right-handed if that's the
  model we learn from.  In (many/some?) cases like playing guitar, its not
  always easy to find a left-handed teacher, and so we learn to play the
  way someone taught us.  
   
  For example - I am mostly (almost completely) left handed, but when I
  tried to learn to golf a number of years back, I had to learn right
  handed - mostly bcause there weren't any left handed clubs around that
  day.  And.. I have trouble with left handed scissors - but only because
  I've spent all my life using right handed scissors, so I've adjusted.
  For me, left handed scissors are foreign.
   
   - Tom

    re .23:
    
    My handedness is similar to yours - write and eat left handed, but many
    "learned" things: baseball, golf, tennis, knitting, etc I learned right
    handed. In January I went to take a career aptitude test and one of the
    things they check is which side is dominant. They did a test that said
    that I was left-eye dominant, but asked many questions about what hand
    I use to comb my hair, catch a ball, etc. Their assessment was that I
    was cross-dominant. 
    
    Sue
    

    Mom, following her european upbringing, wanted me to write with
    the right hand when she noticed I started grabbing everything (spoons
    for eating, crayons for drawing, etc) with my left, knitted a mitten
    without a thumb and placed it over my left hand when I wanted to 
    use the crayons.
    Lo and behold, not only did I start using my right and (and still
    use it primarily for writing) but I found the ritual so amusing, I
    would put the mitten on myself when I wanted to draw 8-).
    Now, like some of the others here, I still feel I am born a
    left-hander, but was trained to use the right, So, while the right
    is more dextrous, the left is stronger. I use it in sports, and 
    do not differentiate at all for tasks like picking up a coffee cup,
    etc. I can write pretty well lefthanded (or paint) when the surface is
    upright (like a black board). 
    I feel that this ability to use either hand was helped along by
    keyboard lessons early in life.
    
    Monica

    
    
    Hi,
    
    Just for kicks I went into the Left Handers notes file and read note
    number 73.  The person in that note read a book by author Phd. Stanley
    Coren, who made a point (in one of his books [which are listed in that note
    but I didn't copy over here]) that babies born to mothers over the 
    age of 30 have a higher likelihood of being born lefty.  The noter
    also said that the author also said that breach babies have a higher
    likelihood also.
    
    Interesting, both of mine are heading towards being lefty and I was
    age 30 and 32 when they were born. 
    
    NF
    

    I've always been right handed except when it comes to activities
    requiring strength....I write with my right and open jars, etc.
    with my left...strange....
    
    My son sucks his left thumb but has starting banging things with
    his right.  I was 31 when I had him and my hubby is a lefty...so
    it sounds like his chances of being a lefty are high...my husband
    said it has always  been a hassle being left handed...maybe I'll
    try that mitten thing when he gets older and favors his left hand
    ...thanks Monica...
    
    Kristen

    set flame/medium
    
    Not every lefty would respond as seamlessly as Monica has to "the
    mitten thing."  Stuttering and dyslexia are very common (and not-
    so-temporary) responses to forcing a child to use its non-natural hand. 
    Please remember that there's nothing *wrong* with lefthandedness; it
    may be a hassle, but think about why--societal attitudes on conformity.  
    Change them, and support "lefty industry" to be sure the tools are 
    available.  Please don't force a handedness change because it would be 
    cool for the kiddo to "be ambidextrous."  At best, it's more (pointless) 
    work for the child.
    
    Note that I'm not suggesting all dyslexia and/or stuttering is caused
    by pulling the mitten stunt; I'm also not suggesting it will inevitably
    result.  But IMO it's highly likely, and not worth the cosmetic "value"
    of the risk.
    
    set flame/pilot
    
    Leslie  

>                   Stuttering and dyslexia are very common (and not-
>   so-temporary) responses to forcing a child to use its non-natural hand. 

Dyslexia?  Says who?

    I had heard something to that effect as well that forcing a 
    handedness can lead to some problems later on.
    
    I also wanted to point out that my mother tried the mitten trick
    on my brother, but had the good sense not to continue after my
    brother would tear off the mitten and draw with the left. He's the 
    type of person who was eating with the bent spoon (you've seen them - 
    they have a right angle in the stem so that when a right handed child
    holds it up it points at his'her mouth) but insisting on using it
    with his left hand which resulted in some humourous contortions.
    
    Although I did relate this story as an amusing anecdote, I don't 
    suggest that children be forced to be right handed (like many 
    of our parents, AND ourselves) if the child is entertained by the 
    idea of using another hand then I do not think that any harm is 
    done with SUGGESTING right hand use, unlike what my mom when through - 
    getting slapped in the hand with a wooden stick when she picked up
    the writing tool in the left and school. How cruel!
    
    Monica  
    

    I ran the mitten thing by my husband and he wouldn't hear of it...
    
    He said if my son is left handed he will always be lefthanded...
    end of discussion.
    
    I agree with him now that I think more about it...Mitch should
    be allowed to favor the hand that is more natural to him...
    
    That dyslexia theory, though...sounds kind of strange to me...
    and hard to believe...
    
    Kristen               

    I was the only left handed person at home as a child, I had 7 other 
    siblings which were all right handed. In school they tried to make me 
    write with my right hand and do everything with my right. Now all I do
    with my left hand is eat, write, everything else I learned right handed. 
    I was the second to the oldest. My ex is left handed and does everything 
    with his left hand and he is #5 out of eight. We have two children and 
    they both are right handed. The only other lefty in my family is my 
    nephew...(that I know of).....
    
    I agree that a child should be allowed to favor the hand he/she is most 
    comfortable using.. I wanted at least one of my children to be left
    handed, but they were more comfortable using their right hand. So be
    it.
    
    I had to laugh when I found out there was a conference for left
    handers.....;.)

    
    This whole topic has gotten me to watch my daughter to see if she shows
    a preference. I know I tend to place her fork situated for each pick
    up of the right hand, but I'm sure that's more to do with my self being
    right handed and where I personally would find it most convienent.
    Anyways, the other night as we left her room I was holding her on my
    left hip such that her left hand is free and her right hand is holding
    onto me. I told her to shut of the light and pointed to the light
    switch. Well, she put out her left hand (actually her pointer finger)
    and proceed to attempt to shut the light off. After 4-5 tries and she
    just couldn't do it, she took her right hand off my shoulder and turned
    the light off in one try. I figured, well, looks like she'll be a
    righty.
    
    Patty

    
I've done quite a bit of research on left-handedness.  In
fact, I had a (very) short article in the September 1991 issue of
Parenting magazine on raising a left-handed child.  (...oops, I still 
    owe a copy to a couple of noters who requested one...)

Relatively little direct research has been done on left-handedness.
Most of what is known comes from research on different subjects such
as brain development. Handedness is usually seen as a spectrum, from
"very" left-handed to very right-handed, with most of us somewhere in
the middle. Most studies estimate that 10 percent of the population is
left-handed, though some say up to 15 percent, depending on how
handedness is defined (i.e., which hand you use to write, which way
you hold a broom, etc.).  Most people also have a dominant eye, foot,
etc., but I won't go down that rathole.

There IS a hereditary factor to handedness, with right-handedness
being quite dominant.  Two right-handed parents have only a one percent
chance of having a left-handed child (which is the case with our older
daughter); two left-handed parents still have only a 40 percent chance
of having a left-handed child.

Most experts do discourage forcing a child to use his or her right
hand.  And there is a higher incidence of learning disabilities among
lefties than in the general public.  However, it is NOT proven--or
believed by most of the experts with whom I've spoken--that forced use of the
right hand CAUSES dyslexia or other problems except unnecessary stress.

There is also a relatively high incidence of left-handedness among
those who have brain damage or who had traumatic births (again, the
latter is the case with our daughter).  This may explain the greater
number of lefties born to older women (who are at greater risk of
having problem deliveries).  Again, this correlation doesn't prove a
cause and effect relationship.

When handedness is determined is also questionable.  One study
argued that you can predict your baby's handedness by the way he or
she lays her head (i.e., to the right or to the left).  I'll have to
check my files, but I think most experts said that a preference
usually starts emerging around 10 months and that it's usually pretty
much settled by around age 3.

Caileigh, age 5, seemed to be an obvious lefty from the start.  Paige,
age 3, seemed to alternate more until about 18 months, and then
clearly favored her right hand.
    
    I have copies of many articles on the topic if anyone is interested.
    
    -Tracy
    

    Re: .35 (research on left-handedness)
    
    Interestingly, there is a higher incidence of left-handedness among 
    the children of women exposed to DES in utero. (This from my doctor 
    who tracks me for DES-related stuff, and does research on DES 
    exposure.) They don't know why...
    
    I've always felt that there is a greater than average number of
    left-handed people in my travels through the technical professions.
    Is this born out by research?
    
    Lucy

>    I've always felt that there is a greater than average number of
>    left-handed people in my travels through the technical professions.
>    Is this born out by research?

	At the risk of starting a rat hole, I have read (sorry, I don't know
where) that in general, lefties are more intelligent than righties.  If
that is true, it may explain why there are more in certain professions.

Frank_proud_father_of_a_very_bright_southpaw

    re: handedness, stress, and dyslexia
    
    I've noticed for myself that when I'm under stress, my dyslexic
    symptoms get a lot worse -- for instance, I have to really
    concentrate on the phone or the conversation gets completely
    garbled in my mind.  
    
    So I would think it quite likely that the extra effort and stress
    of writing etc. with the not-preferred hand would add a level of
    complication to a task that's already harder for a child with
    dyslexia, and aggravate the problem.  
    
    --bonnie

There are some professions that have a higher-than-average number of
lefties, including the arts and sports.  I believe (and this is from
memory) that "the sciences" was also listed.

Re intelligence:  Typically, 20 percent of top scorers on the SATs are
lefties (vs. 10 percent in the general population).  [Note: This is
not intended to start a debate on whether or how well SATs measure
intelligence.]

A relatively recent development in the understanding of the brain and
of handedness is that the brains of lefties are not mirror images of
righties, but are actually organized differently with more
"distributed processing."  The two hemispheres of the lefty's brain
are less specialized and there is more "communication" between them.
The down side is that this might be associated with the dyslexia.  The
up side is that lefties typically recover more fully from brain
injuries in which one hemisphere is injured because the other half of the
brain is better equipped to take over more of the brain's functions. 
    

    I'm back from vacation (WDW! Universal Studios! Sea World!) and here to
    apologize that .29 doesn't have footnotes, quotes, authors, titles,
    publishers, case study numbers or lab coats.  The term paper I did was
    decades ago and was based on meager data, the most recent of which was
    decades old at the time.  So no, I don't know "who" besides me "says"
    dyslexia.  It makes sense to me that that kind of stress (forcing a
    handedness change) could in some cases induce that type of confusion,
    especially when you consider that you're not just forcing performance
    of a difficult task, you're making the subject use different areas of
    the brain in new ways....
    
    Sinistrally,
    Leslie

    There was a long article about left-handers in Sunday's Nashua
    _Telegraph_.  It  wasn't a detailed scientific analysis, but it had
    some interesting points about being a lefthander in a righthanded
    world.  
    
    It's way too long to type in, but I thought I'd mention
    it for all the other parents of lefties...
    
    
    --bonnie

    Purely and observation, with nothing scientific with which to base
    this...
    
    	Lefties *seem* to be more intellectual, and deep thinkers, seem to
    	scrutinize things more closely....
    
    anyone else agree or disagree??
    
    Lyn

    My husband, a civil engineer, scrutinizes things to death.  It
    drives me nuts.  Working in finance, I 'round' things.  He wants
    it to the penny.
    
    I should be like that, but there are only 24 hrs in a day!
    
    Intellectual, yes, in that he artistic.  I have found that true
    for most lefties.
    
    Kath

There is also a higher incidence of left-handedness amongst gay men and women.

I learned this from a couple of sources, I believe, most notably from our
son's left-handed Godmother.  :-)

       Carol

My father was left-handed but was forced to use his right hand at school (this
was in the 1930s, in the UK), as was his father. My mother and her parents
are/were all right handers.

They had four children, all boys, of whom three are left handed. The only right
handed one is my eldest brother (older of identical twins). Of his three
children two are left handed. His wife is right handed.

My younger brother's daughter is left handed, his wife is right handed.

My wife is right handed and we've got 17 month old twins (girl and boy).
Catherine uses her right hand most of the time, but has recently started to use
her left for manipulating things. Stewart has consistently been a leftie.

Eric