My Two Year Old Is a Lefty in a Right Handed Family

My father and I were retrained to Right. I would avoid that.
My husband and nearly 6 year old son are left handed.
handwriting without tears program is awesome for all learners but this especially helped my son because as my husband noticed, printing is designed for right handed writers. Air hand writing (just tracing in air can off set some of that too_

My husband is a left handed guitarist and in looking for my son who is interested, they are harder and more costly but important if that is an interest.

Same with golf clubs and baseball gloves.

Where they sit at the table and in school is helpful. They need space and freedom to adjust.

My husband's one quirky irksome habit is how he files things and if he folds. It is backwards for me but fine for him. How do you work that one out? Be grateful they file and fold:)
Southpaws are awesome too!

Nothing too different. It's possible he'll need to learn sports differently. For instance, he may bat left-handed, but he also may not. I went to school in the 70s and there was no sympathy for left-handed kids, so I had to learn to do things right-handed. Also had to learn to use right-handed scissors because classrooms only had one pair of left-handed ones and the wait was always so long for it (big tip: send your child to school with his own scissors).

That's about it. If he ever feels different about it, pull up a list online of all of the famous people who are left-handed. Many, many presidents are lefties.

M.

Just be sure that no one tries to force him to be a righty. I don't think schools do that anymore, but they used to, and it's not a healthy thing to do.

I'm a lefty who uses my right for menial things. My son and daughter are both left handed as well. It's not a big deal. It's like having blonde hair or brown hair. My husband is right handed and still can't figure out how he wound up with not one, but two left handed kids!

My mom got me my own scissors for school. Everything else I learned how to adapt to my advantage. Sports, writing, positioning the paper correctly for me, etc. He'll be fine. It might be tricky once he starts wanting to learn to tie his shoe laces though! My husband had to leave that one to me. The kids just got confused. You might want to practice tying your laces as a lefty!

Hi- Whatever adults experienced being lefty probably no longer applies. Page is right. I have a lefty 6 year-old daughter and have done nothing special (except buy her a left softball glove:) She uses regular scissors and sometimes we help position her for sports as she will try to "copy" other kids who are righty when learning a new skill. One thing we have done is talk about how special and cool it is to be lefty, her Grandpa was one and if you google it you'll finds lots of creative smart people throughout history. Funny thing is for a while when she was very little she thought right was the RIGHT way and thought there was something wrong with using her left hand. We just talked about how it was special and she's never looked backed. She's very coordinated and draws and writes well. Don't worry and have fun, two is a great age!

Don't stress too much about it. HOwever, if anyone forces him to become a righty... there has been a thought that it could cause stuttering. Not sure if this is valid or not. I'm a lefty for anything that requires precision. However, if it requires strength I used my right. So... for writing and painting and eating I use my left... batting in softball, throwing or serving a volleyball was always done with my right. Let your son do his thing. The paper will slant the other way and he'll have to learn to write so that he doesn't drag his hand across the words. I have never had a problem with it but many people have. I hold my pen like a right handed person, but just in my left whereas many left handed people were taught to curve the hand around so that they could write... shows who was taught correctly and who wasn't!

My kids and husband are all righties, and I'm the lone lefty. But I use my right hand for many things including cutting with scissors and knives. Because your son may have a different side preference for different things, I would recommend watching him as he tries new things (like scissors, throwing, mixing with a spoon...) and see what his natural bent is for each. Then support him in whatever way he needs. (I remember being known as the lefty in school, so I was always automatically given the lefty scissors, but that wasn't what I needed. And by the way, they make scissors now which are supposed to work for both.)

Just an interesting note, I write with my hand bent over the top of the letters (common for lefties). I just noticed recently that both my righty children write the same as I do. I've tried correcting them, but they don't like the traditional paper slant. I think maybe they've been watching me and copying. If you can get your son to copy the correct paper slant (parallel with the arm) from you, I'm sure he'll thank you later.

My oldest daughter is the only lefty in the family and I have found that you really need to make sure other people who might be instructing them know this. Such as in spots, for my daughter horse back riding, teachers. We did find that with baseball she throws more comfortably with her right hand and needs a left handed mit. So not all things will be left handed. Personally I find it hard for people being left handed because I see the challanges and discomforts she deals with . Also important if you ever have any phycological evaluations that they know they are left handed because their brain functions differently. We just encountered this in seeking extra help with math at school. Sometimes she needs to do things differently because writting in a binder can be uncomfortable when her hand rests on the wire binder. We have to take the paper out.

Don't worry about it. He'll figure it out on his own. My daughter's a lefty, and I never taught her anything. She performs just fine. Great, in fact.