Left hand, right hand?

[jayhawk]

Lefty here. I can mouse with my right hand and knit (poorly) right-handed. I spent a couple of months in Germany when I was 20 and adopted the Continental style for eating- much more efficient!

My maternal grandmother was born in 1899 and was also left-handed. She was never forced to use her right hand, as far as I know. She taught 4th grade for years and had beautiful cursive handwriting.

[2littlemonkeys]

I'm a lefty that does some things righty.

I eat and write best with my left hand but can do it with my right if forced to (though writing is really hard and looks like a kid wrote it.)

Sports, I mostly use my right hand - I bat and shoot right.  I catch and throw left.  When I ran track my right foot was always in front on the starting blocks but I don't know if that means I was doing it lefty or righty.

Opening doors, I use my right hand.  I knit right but sew left.  I use the mouse, calculator and remote controls with my right hand.  I also dial my cell phone and land line with my right hand but since that frees my left hand up to write, I'm not sure if that's a lefty or righty way of doing it.   

I wear my purse on my right shoulder and thus, my purses are "backwards."  But when I picked up my kids, I balanced them on my left hip, which made having to write anything hard.   I wear my watch on my left wrist.  I can't use lefty scissors to save my life.

[Slartibartfast]

Lefty - and I hold my baby on my right side more often than not    Same with my purse, which means I have to be careful because If I'm carrying Bittybartfast's carseat and I have my purse over that shoulder, I almost always end up dipping my shoulder a bit and my purse falls and bops her on the head 

[kareng57]

Just curious - and maybe I'm extra dense today - but why is it so important to the powers-that-be which orientation your son has?

I grew up in the 1960s and by then (here, at least) they'd quit trying to switch lefties to righties.  But the only real difference I can remember is that the lefties were given special left-handed scissors.  If a kid was generally right-handed but used his/her left hand for scissors, couldn't they just give him the lefty scissors?

I'd think that being ambidextrous like he is would be a big advantage.  Lots of people have an awful time if they fracture fingers/wrists/arms on the dominant size and have to try to do tasks with the "other" hand for several weeks.

They don't try to switch them anymore but apparently (natural) ambidexterity makes it take a lot longer for them to develop hand strength and dexterity because they can just switch as soon as their hand begins to tire. Kids with a strongly dominant hand get twice as much practice with that hand.

They won't force him to make a choice but we will just try to encourage him to use whichever is dominant as often as possible.

Thanks for the explanation.

[MOM21SON]

I am a righty and my left hand is pretty much useless!  DH is a lefty.  Teaching DS to tie his shoes took FOREVER because DH insisted he would be the one to teach him.  DS is righty.

[SamiHami]

I remember back in college one of my instructors gave us some sort of test to determine how right or left handed one is. I'm very much a lefty. The only things I do with my right are bowling (that's how I was taught) and using scissors. I cannot use left handed scissors for the life of me.

[FlyingBaconMouse]

I'm left-handed for writing, holding a fork and brushing my teeth: nearly everything else is ambi or right. In elementary school, they would go to great lengths to get me left-handed scissors...which I would then use with my right hand. 

I have a lot of horrible memories of being forced to learn sports left-handed by people who saw me writing that way--that is definitely not my sports side!  Kind of ironic, since the only thing my father does left-handed is play golf...

[*new*mommyagain36]

I am right handed for writing, every other task is either left or both hands working together.
I had to stop and think about this one though.
Writing = right
Reaching, carrying = left
Petting animal = both - as in I reach out to animal with both my hands, kind of cupped and pet with both my hands, in kind of a smoothing motion, going down from neck to back. (TMI? - sorry)
Also, I have noticed, when hugging someone I tend to "pat" them with the left hand only.  My whole family "pats" when hugging but I've never noticed which hand they pat with.
Text/Dial/Calculator buttons = both thumbs together.
DH and DS are right handed entirely.
DD is too small to be writing but reaches, carries and colors with left hand.

[Outdoor Girl]

I have a lot of horrible memories of being forced to learn sports left-handed by people who saw me writing that way--that is definitely not my sports side!  Kind of ironic, since the only thing my father does left-handed is play golf...

What they needed to do is test you for which eye is dominant.  My brother is left handed but right eyed and right footed.  He bats and throws a baseball lefty but golfs and plays hockey (and soccer, if he played it) righty.

I've posted this before.  To determine your dominant eye, with both eyes open, hold up one hand with the index finger raised and line it up with something in the distance, like a telephone pole.  Then close one eye at a time.  The eye that leaves your finger closest to being lined up with the telephone pole is your dominant eye.