Our new pediatrician (not the dev ped) recommended at our last visit that we "force" Nick to become a rightie. I imagine lefties do have it hard living in a mostly right-handed world, but is it right to force my son to change what comes naturally? That just doesn't feel right to me. Society already expects him to conform to a different standard than what comes naturally for him. Who cares about which hand he writes with?!
So we've been practicing letters here and there, left-handed. I keep a letter strip tacked up in the living room near the kids' craft table and I catch Nick tracing letters with his fingertip periodically. The tough part is teaching proper pencil grip - I have a hard time reversing it to show him proper technique before I lose his attention and he moves on.
At pre-school they use the Handwriting Without Tears curriculum and they use a lot of sensory-motor activities (drawing in sand, tracing tactile surfaces with fingers, etc). One of his 4 teachers is a leftie, so she's been working with him 1:1 as time permits.
Clearly it's working. Nick drew this with sidewalk chalk today....
Okay, so he forgot the C. But look at that penman-, er, chalkmanship!
AND? He said, "I like drawing my name, Mom. It's fun."
Learning = Fun. Rock on, buddy. I hope you always have fun with it.
2 comments:
Oh no, don't force him to be a rightie! My entire family, both sides are lefties, save for my son, and I can say with authority that NONE of us have suffered (well, maybe we've suffered, but not due to which hand we use to write our names!!!)
And for me, the only downside to having a right-handed son is that I very often forget which is his right and which is his left, because I tend to assume the pencil is in his left... ;-)
Huh, I have to come here to find out Kristen is a leftie? Go figure. ;-)
Um, nope, don't make him change. People need to get used to it and figure out how to work with it. We'll have the same issue with our Nik, too.
Oh, and Nick didn't forget the c in his name...he must've been saying his to *my* Nik! ;-)
Good job, Nick and good job Mama!
Truth: my word ver is "mater"! kinda cool.
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