I was recently assigned a research topic, of my choice (to a certain extent) for school. I have to write a 10-12 page paper on the topic. I was considering choosing discrimination against left-handed people as my topic, but a quick trip to google revealed only 2 or 3 potentially useful websites, although I didn't try very long or very hard to find others. Do any of you know any good books on the topic, or whether you think that there is enough information out there to write a decent-length paper on?
Posted by Taalcon (Member # 839) on :
Oh, probably tons. I'm too tired to help you look now, though
I'm a lefty, BTW. Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
Find articles from academic journals through the library. Posted by Vadon (Member # 4561) on :
Bah, I know of a good book we have, I can't find it at the moment... But I'll be sure to tell you if I find it.
Perhaps you could look into the painting of the sisteen chapel, monalisa, and other rennisance works for hidden lefty ness things.
Posted by CaySedai (Member # 6459) on :
my daughter, a nephew and the news editor at the paper where I work are all left-handed.
I haven't noticed discrimination, but rather difficulty in using items designed for right-handed people. You should see my 8-year-old daughter trying to open a can holding the can opener in her right hand and reaching over with her left hand to turn it.
I really gotta get her a left-handed can opener.
(edited to add) I think I recall my mom saying that in the past, when left-handed kids were learning to write in school, teachers would force them to learn to write with their right hands. My sister was ambidextrous, sort of. She would write part of a letter with one hand and finish with the other hand. Like the circle of the "a" with one hand and the straight part of the same "a" with the other hand. Her teacher basically told her to "pick a hand" and stick with it, not necessarily the right hand. She could have gone either way, but went with the right hand.
[ October 07, 2004, 01:59 AM: Message edited by: CaySedai ]
Posted by Frisco (Member # 3765) on :
In high school, I wrote a Lefty Manifesto after 7 lefties got the top 7 ACT scores in my class (of 110 people).
We were all male, too.
*ducks*
Posted by Kama (Member # 3022) on :
My best friend and I used to get top scores in high school, and we're both right handed girls. Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
Hey, the waving guy is left-handed too!
Yeah, it's not really active discrimination, but I'd say the fact that the world is centered around right-handers is discrimination. Just like not having a wheelchair ramp.
Frisco, at least two of the five valedictorians in my class were left-handed (I have no idea about the other three). Assuming 10% lefties in the general population, we were over-represented by a factor of four. Left-handers rule!
Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
I'm a lefty!
"Everyone is born right-handed, but only the best can overcome it." Posted by Happy Camper (Member # 5076) on :
I've found the world is actually much more forgiving of left-handedness than it was even 15 or 20 years ago. Specifically with common use items like scissors. I think you would actually have to look hard to not find a pair of universal scissors these days. Though I do still find I have problems with tools I am unfamiliar with, such as handheld paper cutters (no, not scissors) and there was this whiteout tool that I couldn't figure out how to use, but it turns out it was because it was specifically designed to be easy for a righty. I got made fun of for that one.
And then of course you can look at how most major machinery is designed to be mainly operated with the right hand (cars, airplanes (from the left seat anyway), leaf blowers, drill presses, etc.), and our system of writing forces lefties to adapt their style or drag their hands through ink and pencil lead.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
In Italy, they still smack kids who use their left hands to write.
Posted by CaySedai (Member # 6459) on :
Cayla says, "I write badly with my right hand. I write better with my right hand than my foot."
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
I know that my great grandfather was beaten by his teacher for writing left handed.
I wonder what things we're doing now that people will look back on in two or three generations and think "my god, people can be such idiots:.
Posted by Aerin (Member # 3902) on :
Frisco, Happy Camper, and Taalcon?
Posted by Psycho Triad (Member # 3331) on :
<-- Left handed.
Helps with fencing immensely, actually. Significantly fewer people know how to successfully land their wonder moves when the opponent's are isn't on the right.
crazy as always, Psycho Triad
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
<--Also left handed.
Posted by Frisco (Member # 3765) on :
Well, I was in good company, Aerin.
Incidentally, is Aerin your main screenname? I'm thinking I remember you from somewhere, but you don't post much. Maybe just because we're both in the July '02 EnderCon class.
[edit: You totally walked right into that one, No-way-mon. ]
[ October 07, 2004, 09:54 AM: Message edited by: Frisco ]
Posted by Mr.Funny (Member # 4467) on :
Anyways, Happy Camper, I think that so-called universal scissors still favor right-handed people because of the way the cutting edges are set up. It's possible to use them as a lefty, but they aren't as effective.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
When I was a kid I used can openers as described above, and unscrewed the handles of god knows how many wall mounted pencil sharpeners.
I actually had to go to a perceptual motor clinic to use my right arm and hand for much of anything.
Posted by Brian_Berlin (Member # 6900) on :
>>Scott R Said>>In Italy, they still smack kids who use their left hands to write.
Well, I didn't smack my kids for it, but I did and still do correct them when they try to do something left-handed. For kids, it's all new and awkward to them - developing gross and fine motor skills. Any kid can be right- or left-handed, imho, depending on what the parents insist upon or allow.
But since lefties have a shorter life expectancy, and to avoid the generall hassle of everything, we insist upon right handedness.
Righty, here. But I do shoot archery and play billiards left handed.
Also, a neat trick is writing two hands at a time (inspired by Johnny Tremain)... Try this... have 2 papers side by side, have a pen in each hand. With your dominant hand, start writing normally - left to right. at the exact same time with your non-dominant hand, write the exact same text right-to left. Your non-dominant hand is generally able to use your dominant hand as a crutch and is able to scribble out semi-legible, yet inverted text. Keep practicing and the fine motor skills of your non-dominant will get better and better. (though it's a useless activity, other than just being able to write backwards with your non-dominant).
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
So Brian, you believe that using the left hand as the dominant hand *results* in a shorter life span? Left handed people do, on average, have a shorter lifespan than right handed people, but somehow I doubt it's as a result of using their left hands too much.
Handedness is apparent even in the womb, by the way, and I've read (although I don't have any citations handy) that forcing a child to use their non-dominant hand as though it were their dominant hand often results in learning disabilities.
I think that forcing handedness on a child is doing them a gross disservice, personally.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
I believe there are actual insurance statistics That say lefties are more accident prone and don't always live as long due to accidental death. But I don't think they can actually put it on a life insurance questionare.
It's a convienent excuse for my inherent klutzyness.
I never thought about how I use a can opener, I'm going to have to think about it next time I do it. However, I learned to cut, with my left hand, using right handed scissors. It is totally bizzare because I *know* it isn't ergonomically correct, but to this day I prefer right handed sewing sccisors (the large orange Fiskars) to left handed ones. Mom eventually got around to buying me lefthanded scissors. (In the Fiskars brand the Lefty ones had red handles instead of orange for a while.) The lefty ones just never felt right though.
Oh, and HC, you are a left handed engineer? Do you realize how few left-handed engineers there are out there? You bring the grand total of lefthanded engineers I have ever known (including myself) to four.
AJ
Posted by Kama (Member # 3022) on :
Yeah, AJ, isn't he exceptional?
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
On another subject, my great grandmother was lefthanded and they tied her left hand behind her back to make her write right-handed.
And, I can right mirror image from right to left with my left hand, pretty easily, like Da Vinci. It tripped the people sitting next to me in classes out. I can do both with my right hand too as far as putting my brain in the correct thinking mode, but I just don't have the fine motor skills with my right hand for writing.
I always loved Bach while playing the piano because he was one of the few composers that gave equal technically difficult playing time to the left hand. I played his Invention #4 which although a simple enough peice that they include it in student anthologies, you never hear anyone play at piano recitals and competitions because there is a three or four measure trill in the left hand.
AJ
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
That's really cool about the mirror writing AJ. When I finally get to meet you, I'm going to want to watch you do that.
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
I believe I've read that lefties being more accident prone is due to the world being set up for right-handed people. But I don't have any references to that handy. No pun intended. Anyway, it might not be because lefties are inherently more clumsy, just that they're trying to survive in a world where everything is against them.
I can write almost as well with my left hand as my right... but since my handwriting is atrocious either way, that's not saying much. Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Well it has to do with brain dominance Kama, (there are loads of books written on the subject, and I've read quite a few of them.) Left handed people although a really small percentage of the population are like 20 times more likely to be found in artistic fields like sculpting and graphic design and painting, because they are generally far more Right Brain dominant. It is normally extremely Left Brained people that go into engineering. So you find far fewer lefthanded engineers on average than even in the regular population.
I am <grin> the only lefthanded female engineer I have ever heard of. (If anyone knows of any others, I'd love to talk to them!) I knew two other guys in our entire college of engineering that were left handed. Grin, one of them is Steve, and the other one was a good friend named Julio. My friend Lynn was Julio's gf, now she's married to him. We used to do a lot of stuff together with them, but when Lynn went out to dinner with the three of us, it was the only time in her life she had to worry about where she was sitting because of HER elbows!
I think it is second nature to most lefties to scope out the best place to sit at a table (On an end where your left elbow isn't going to interfere with anyone else) while eating because otherwise there are normally accidental elbow wars. I have enough problems with getting the food to my mouth anyway. I don't need any additional complications!
But, since I've been out of college, I think I know of one left handed guy up in my company's engineering department but he's the only person I've added to the tally.
AJ
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
links (I googled Left Handed World)This person already has a bunch so i'm lazy: [http://jackie.freeshell.org/woh/links.htm
Here are some polls from the same place on your actual preference.
[ October 07, 2004, 11:18 AM: Message edited by: BannaOj ]
Posted by Brian_Berlin (Member # 6900) on :
Re LH shorter lifespans: I think it's more that it's a right-handed world out there. But it's just statistics I've heard.
re LH engineers: one of my favorite lefty quotes went something along the lines of since the opposite hemisphere of the brain controls a particular side of the body (generally) only left-handed people are in there right minds. left or right handed, I think "right brained" engineers make the best ones!
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
quote: Oldfield (1971 as reported in Geschwind & Behan, 1984), using the standard Edinburgh Handedness Inventory, reported that 90% of women are right-handed while 86% of men are right-handed. Oldfield claimed that the 4% difference is significant. Ellis, Ellis, and Marshall (1988) used the very same Edinburgh Inventory and failed to reach any significant sex difference. Their study suggested that any difference in left-handedness and the sexes must be smaller than 1.5%. However, the Ellis et al. study used only a few hundred subjects.
If we accept that there are more male left-handers than female left-handers, it seems that the chemical which causes the shift to right-brain dominance is male-linked. The authors chose to study the influence of testosterone in high levels. Stress during pregnancy can cause fetal testosterone levels to rise in rats (Ward & Weisz, 1980 as reviewed in James, 1987). In the womb, both males and females share the same maternal and placental hormones. Once the testes develop, testosterone rises to high levels. An increase in testosterone in the womb, combined with the extra testosterone from the testes, could cause slow development in the left-hemisphere. This would explain why left-handedness would be more common in males. The strength of the link between testosterone and slow growth stems not from prenatal studies of hormone effects on cortical structure, but from postnatal studies. Hormones administered to the rat fetus after birth were able to alter asymmetries in the right brain and change tail posture, an indication of cerebral laterality (Diamond,1984 and Rosen et al, 1983 as review in Geschwind and Galaburda, 1987a). Scientists have not yet proved that prenatal testosterone causes abnormal development.
[ October 07, 2004, 11:35 AM: Message edited by: BannaOj ]
Posted by Brian_Berlin (Member # 6900) on :
Bible scholars: anybody know where that verse is about the army of left-handed archers?
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
[ October 07, 2004, 11:53 AM: Message edited by: BannaOj ]
Posted by AmkaProblemka (Member # 6495) on :
It does exist, but I don't think we see it in the US (or Canada?) as much as in Europe. The reason why there probably isn't a lot of literature is because most people who were born left handed are trained from infancy not to use the left hand.
When my mother in law was here, and my 20 month old daughter happened to be using her left hand to eat with a spoon, my MIL immediately took the spoon out of her left hand and put it in her right hand. I shool my head, smiled, and put it back in her left hand.
I talked to my husband after that, and he agreed with her actions He told me all sorts of things about how favored people are on the 'right hand of god' and so left handed were of a more evil nature. I told him I disagreed with him a lot, and brought out a bit of evidence. The subject was sort of dropped there, and didn't come up again because A)it is the women who take care of such things, B)our children, like us, have naturally chosen their right hand, and C) his mother went back home to Russia.
My mother wonders if she was born left handed, because she knows her mother did the 'switch hands whenever child has object in left hand' thing. Her mother was born in Holland. Even though raised in the US, I'm sure that the cultural influences from my grandmother's parents were pretty strong.
I honestly can't say this about all of Europe, but those are my experiences.
Posted by Brian_Berlin (Member # 6900) on :
Born that way?
Do you all think left-handedness affects the way the brain develops? Or do you think that the way the brain develops affects hand dominance?
Posted by UofUlawguy (Member # 5492) on :
My five-year-old son writes and draws with his right hand, but throws and bats left-handed (and quite well, I might add). He also sucks his right thumb.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
I think that one's natural handedness is probably reflective of brain development. I wouldn't be surprised if forcing somone to use their non-dominant hand as though it were their dominant hand will result in changes in the brain, but from what I've read on the subject, those changes don't seem to be benign.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
It appears to be a bi-modal distribution. The lefties that can adapt thrive, often in more prominent positions than their righty counterparts (there are a lot of US presidents that were lefthanded for example.) The ones that can't get shuffled to the bottom of the stack and are often downtrodden never to emerge. The bottom of the stack ones often have problems with dyslexia among other things.
AJ
Posted by Stray (Member # 4056) on :
quote: Do you all think left-handedness affects the way the brain develops? Or do you think that the way the brain develops affects hand dominance?
Don't know about that, but I do remember reading some years ago that left-handed people develop language centers in both hemispheres of their brain, instead of in only the left hemisphere as right-handers do. Therefore, if a lefty suffers a stroke or other brain injury, while they're more likely to develop aphasia, they're also more able to recover from it. Pretty cool.
Here's a link Posted by Brian_Berlin (Member # 6900) on :
"The one that got away" was a lefty that I dated for 5 years... and I must admit she was a fascinating person.
Posted by peterh (Member # 5208) on :
I'm not surprised that there are a lot of left handed people here, since the intelligence level here is greater than the population at large.
Posted by Sara Sasse (Member # 6804) on :
quote: talked to my husband after that, and he agreed with her actions He told me all sorts of things about how favored people are on the 'right hand of god' and so left handed were of a more evil nature.
Oh, Amka.
I'm stunned.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
And as far as being born that way, or something that is in the brain, for a personal anecdote. I broke my arm at the age of 3 or so, right when I was learning how to write. My mom had just started noticing that I was favoring my left hand, before I fell off some cattle fencing that I was climbing on and broke it. As soon as the 8 weeks were up and it started to heal, I went right back to using my left hand again. (They didn't realize it was broken until my regular pediatric checkup so I never ended up in a cast since it was set ok.)
AJ
[ October 07, 2004, 12:53 PM: Message edited by: BannaOj ]
Posted by AmkaProblemka (Member # 6495) on :
I was stunned too. His other ideas of parenting are not so strange. I mean, he is a good father who plays with his kids and talks to them. This is just part of the culture he came from.
In fact, it is one of those things that has made me think about how people can be pre-concieved based on singular instances. This idea, the switching of hands if they are left-handed, is inconcievable right now. One might assume that if a parent does this, they must be a bad parent over all. I don't think this is necessarily the case. I believe many loving and gentle parents did this to their children in the past, because that is what they told was best for their child.
Vovka has been in America a lot longer, now. I'm not sure what his opinion would be should the issue come up again. But when those things are taught as absolute truth (In atheist Soviet Russia, no less) from when they are very young, it is kind of hard to change the idea.
Soviet Russia was also where they made 1 year olds sit on potty seats until they peed or pooped. This happened at home and in every institution (daycare/pre-school). On the other hand, Soviet Russia is also where the best after school and summer programs free to the families for children existed. It was there that after school Vovka studied drawing, photography, film-making, etc. He talks about summer camp with great nostalgia.
It has given me an interesting way to look at things.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
My daughter (the oldest) is left-handed and I asked her about any problems she noticed. She said computers in libraries and in schools were annoying because there was almost no way to move the mouse to the other side so she could use it with her left hand.
However, she has adapted and simply uses her right hand 99% of the time.
Scissors were a big problem for my best friend when we were in school, in remembering that I buy scissors that aren't handed so there is no trouble with my daughter using them around the house. Fiskars sewing scissors are awesome, with the new designed handle - even my mom with her bad arthritis can use them comfortably.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Makes you wonder, doesn't it, what things we take as givens that would seem equally preposterous, bordering on abusive to someone raised in a different culture.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Go wireless mice! Of course they would walk off anywhere but a private home or office, but thanks to them I can do ambidextrous mousing.
I don't change the button settings, although I know you can in the software. Left clicks are still on the left and right clicks are still on the right.
AJ
Posted by Leonide (Member # 4157) on :
Brian, what exactly do you mean by "the general hassle of everything"? I've been left-handed my entire life (...um...of course...*smacks forehead*) and the only thing I have to complain about is smudginess on the side of my palm from having to lay my hand over what i just wrote. A hassle only if i can't find a sink.
And if one of your children was naturally left-handed...i don't think artificially making him/her write right-handed is going to miraculously increase their life-span...they're still naturally left-handed, aren't they?
AJ, i can't use left-handed scissors to save my life! I must have adjusted pretty early on (which is odd because my mom got me left-handed scissors early...) to the righties.
*gotta learn to refresh the thread...gotta learn to refresh the thread...*
[ October 07, 2004, 01:11 PM: Message edited by: Leonide ]
Posted by TheTick (Member # 2883) on :
I could imagine that a 'naturally' left-handed person forced to be a righty may be MORE likely to hurt themselves.
Posted by Psycho Triad (Member # 3331) on :
Something Belle said made me curious.
Of all you lefties, how many were incouraged/took your own initiative to learn to use a computer mouse left handed? Do to standard PC stations throughout my education, the mouse is always on the right, so thats how I learned it.
I tried configuring my buttons opposite and using it in my left hand once... it was awkward.
I think being a leftie in a rightie world gives me a little more ability to adapt. (nothing significant, but still its there)
Any comments on this?
Posted by AmkaProblemka (Member # 6495) on :
You probably did a lot of cutting in school, where right hand scissors may have been. OTOH, I seem to remember that the scissors at my schools were ambidextrous. That is, both handles were tiny little uncomfortable circles.
Posted by TheTick (Member # 2883) on :
I do get a fair number of calls for left handed mice and keyboards (with the numpad on the other side) at work. Unfortunately, we don't have any keyboards, and the mice we have are at best symmetrical. There are specialty sites like The Left Hand with such things though.
Posted by Leonide (Member # 4157) on :
Psycho, I never even gave the mouse a second thought when I started using a computer. It was easy for me to learn to use my right hand. *shrug* I don't know why that is, since my right hand is usually completely useless.
Posted by Psycho Triad (Member # 3331) on :
Oh, and I somewhat agree with scissors.
The cheap leftie scissors that were eventually provided in my school hurt my hand. So I'd grab a decent pair of rightie scissors, and cope.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Hmm, I just passed the other left handed engineer in the hall while I was getting lunch. It suddenly struck me that in this company of greybeards, he's one of the youngest other than me. (If he's over thirty I'd be surprised.) Maybe it is also a generational thing, and we will see the numbers of left handed engineers drastically increase in subsequent generations. Even in my parents generation left handedness wasn't quite as accepted as it is now.
AJ
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
Hey, AJ...I'm a lefthanded female engineer. Well, engineering student anyway.
By the way, I cut things with my right hand and use a mouse on the right side. I tried using a mouse configured for lefty use and found it to be pretty natural as well. I use either hand for the touchpad mouse on my computer, though it's usually the left.
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
*woo hoo*
Another one!
Shigosei we will definitely have to meet sometime!
(even if you change your major <grin>)
AJ
[ October 07, 2004, 02:33 PM: Message edited by: BannaOj ]
Posted by amira tharani (Member # 182) on :
I'm also left handed - amazing how many of us there are on Hatrack, since we make up only 10% of the population. However, I'm odd because although I write and draw with my left hand, I do almost everything else right-handed - use scissors, play tennis, throw and catch balls, you name it. I'm right-footed and right-eyed though (many people have dominant feet, eyes and ears, though most people don't think about that).
Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
Hey hey from another Lefty.
In any case, Mr. Funny:
I would be hesitant to recommend researching left-hand discrimination for this particular assignment, but I'm sure you could find enough resources if you dealt with other cultures and the significance of different hands (I'm thinking about Saudi Arabia here). But I would think abot choosing a different topic, unless you can find a way to develop an insightful 'solution' to the problem of handedness descrimination. Being somewhat familiar with your particular assignment, I would shy away from any problem that you can't suggest a course of action for.
However, if you are very interested in the topic, I'm sure you could do a good job. (Isaac Asimov even mentioned a theory on the development of right-hand dominance in a column for Fantasy & Science Fiction (Jan 1988)). So there's lots of good stuff out there, and I'm sure you could find it. But make sure to use the actual OSU library to research. that's a pretty awesome library.
Posted by Little_Doctor (Member # 6635) on :
LEFTIES RULE!!!
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
I couldn't make up my mind in school which hand I wnated to use, so up to second grade I was using one and then another when tht one got tired.
The problem was that my handwriting was horrible with both.
Finally they made me use my right hand..but I won awards shooting my bow left-handed, and when i got a new compound bow it was right ahnded, and I sucked (comparativly).
I still play billiards lefty, and love it. I can play with my right as well, but not nearly as well as lefty....I just don't have the control for it.
Kwea
[ October 07, 2004, 06:47 PM: Message edited by: Kwea ]
Posted by Little_Doctor (Member # 6635) on :
I love telling people I'm a righty and then beating them in arm wrestling becausde I told them I'd use my bad hand. Tee Hee. Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
I bet a guy $100 that I could beat him using my left hand.
I broke and ran the table.
Kwea
[ October 07, 2004, 06:49 PM: Message edited by: Kwea ]
Posted by Happy Camper (Member # 5076) on :
I've always used the mouse on the right side, that's just the way it was always configured when I started learning to use a computer. Though when I'm using a laptop with a touchpad I'll use my left hand, and the fact that the buttons aren't mirrored didn't even occur to me until now. I guess it's a matter of how it was learned in the first place. I'd suspect lefties are more adaptable and more comfortable finding unconventional ways to use things. I always remember when we would get scissors way back in school, it was a choice between the sharper righties and these rediculously dull, rounded, lefty scissors, so I sort of modified my hand position so that I could use the good ones.
One thing that still bothers me, and the reason I try to carry around a stylus is touchpads for signatures at places like Best Buy. The cord for the "pen" is too short to allow for comfortable lefty signing. Oh, and the supposed ergonomic mice are terrible since they're designed for use with the right hand. I still don't understand how the woman across from me does it (she switches hands due to some wrist problems).
I'd be interested to see if there are any correlations between Myers-Briggs types and hand dominance.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
Most mice have an option to switch the buttons, I believe. My best friend is a lefty, and that is something he told me years ago, when i couldn't get it to work on his computer.
He said "Now you know how I feel every day."
Smartass....
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Just switched my cordless mouse to my left side. I think both Steve and I keep our mice on the right, but part of it is due to the setup of our computers, which is due to the furniture we have and looking at Steve's computer desk while it is a corner desk it is more designed for a right handed person.
It feels a litte odd having the mouse on the left.
AJ
[ October 07, 2004, 10:32 PM: Message edited by: BannaOj ]
Posted by CaySedai (Member # 6459) on :
Before Cayla was a year old, I knew she was left-handed. She favored her left hand even at that early stage. I had decided to not force her to try to be right-handed because the whole "force them to be right-handed" thing was, IMO, barbaric. I think I've heard what has been echoed here - forcing kids to change that tendency can give them other problems like clumsiness and (I think I heard this) stuttering.
Cayla is 8 now, and in the Talented and Gifted program at school. She is artistic and sensitive. She amazes me with her knowledge and abilities. It's definitely her nature and not my parenting.
Posted by Mr.Funny (Member # 4467) on :
Hmm, I must be rare, too. I have no artistic talent whatsoever (though I am good at spatial visualization type things) and I absolutely love math and science. Undoubtedly I will end up in a career as an engineer, just like the rest of my family...
Also, AJ, my aunt is a left-handed civil engineer, and my mom (also an engineer) writes right handed but throws left handed. So, including my sister, I have 2.5 left-handed female engineers in my family
[ October 08, 2004, 11:40 AM: Message edited by: Mr.Funny ]
Posted by Coccinelle (Member # 5832) on :
I'm a lefty when it comes to writing, but it depends on everything else as to which hand I use, cutting(scissors)- right, crocheting- right, needlepoint-left, cutting(kinfe)- left. I think it's just one of those adaptability issues. No lefty scissors in kindergarten, the right ones don't work in my left hand, learn to use the other hand. I accidently bought some lefty shears the other day and tried them. I loved them!
Posted by CaySedai (Member # 6459) on :
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
He told me all sorts of things about how favored people are on the 'right hand of god' and so left handed were of a more evil nature.![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Wave]](graemlins/wave.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)
![[Dont Know]](graemlins/dontknow.gif)
![[Party]](graemlins/party.gif)