Ah since some of us are sharing our childhood experiences with being left handed:
I am ambidextrous, like many lefties. While learning to write my letters in Kindergarten (age 5 for non-US peeps), my teacher noticed that I’d switch hands when the one writing got tired. She didn’t like this at all and kept telling me that I needed to choose one. She actually made quite a stink about it so I chose my left, idk why the left specifically.
I still write with my left, despite trying to retrain back to writing with both at different times in my life. I feel like a mini superpower was taken from me.
Interestingly enough, I’ve noticed that my large motor skills are best used with my right side (arm, leg, hand), and my small motor skills with the left. I think it’s a leftover from being truly ambidextrous, or it may be common amongst left handed people. Idk…the very few others I’ve asked seem to be left handed/sided exclusively.
I think if I had to choose a hand I would choose the right, just because we write left to right and I wouldn’t want to track my hand through fresh pencil and pen marks.
My friend in highschool was left handed and his left hand was always completely covered in graphite.
She didn’t like this at all and kept telling me that I needed to choose one.
i hate it when someone sees something cool and unusual and immediately feels the need to correct it… as if it were a negative thing.
oh - a kindergartner is so good at writing that they can write with either hand, and you see a problem in that?? it’s such a sad way to think! it’s counterproductive pedantry
While your teacher most likely acted out for entirely wrong reasons, there’s some logic to picking a preferred side and sticking with it, especially while. It allows you to devote more resources to develop better fine motors skills than you could get if you trained both hands
nobody is really wired to me one hand or the other, we can all learn to be ambidextrous. your are that way because you just feel more comfortable/experienced doing certain things with one hand than the other, it’s a formation of neuromuscular habit.
it’s just a matter of practice, but yes, as children the adults around us often DEMAND we be one or the other. just like they demand gendered behaviors, etc. And children conform because adults like conformity.
it’s interesting as an adult, like getting coaching and having to re-learn basic bio mechanics you ‘assume’ are some sort of default, because well, nobody ever told/taught you you could/should be doing things differently. like there are different way to hold pens for different styles of writing…
not any different really when say, comes to language use and accents. you have a ‘native’ one you got from your upbringing, but you can unlearn it and a lot of people do because they won’t gain social acceptance if they retain it. when I code switch to my ‘native’ speech… people freak out because it offends them because I’m supposed to sound smart and ‘educated’ , not like a stupid working-class hick. and of course, the first year i came back from college all my family/friends basically asked me why i was such a douchebag and talked so pretentiously…
I don’t believe that’s true - handedness is a real thing. You might be able to learn to perform well enough with the other at something with practice, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a naturally dominant hand for most people.
Ah since some of us are sharing our childhood experiences with being left handed:
I am ambidextrous, like many lefties. While learning to write my letters in Kindergarten (age 5 for non-US peeps), my teacher noticed that I’d switch hands when the one writing got tired. She didn’t like this at all and kept telling me that I needed to choose one. She actually made quite a stink about it so I chose my left, idk why the left specifically.
I still write with my left, despite trying to retrain back to writing with both at different times in my life. I feel like a mini superpower was taken from me.
Interestingly enough, I’ve noticed that my large motor skills are best used with my right side (arm, leg, hand), and my small motor skills with the left. I think it’s a leftover from being truly ambidextrous, or it may be common amongst left handed people. Idk…the very few others I’ve asked seem to be left handed/sided exclusively.
I think if I had to choose a hand I would choose the right, just because we write left to right and I wouldn’t want to track my hand through fresh pencil and pen marks.
My friend in highschool was left handed and his left hand was always completely covered in graphite.
Yeah I definitely didn’t think it through, because too small lol.
I too suffered the graphite mark and even had it transfer to my face via scratching an itch. Very embarrassing as a kid!
I also had a tough time with spiral notebooks, markers, and craft scissors.
i hate it when someone sees something cool and unusual and immediately feels the need to correct it… as if it were a negative thing.
oh - a kindergartner is so good at writing that they can write with either hand, and you see a problem in that?? it’s such a sad way to think! it’s counterproductive pedantry
While your teacher most likely acted out for entirely wrong reasons, there’s some logic to picking a preferred side and sticking with it, especially while. It allows you to devote more resources to develop better fine motors skills than you could get if you trained both hands
nobody is really wired to me one hand or the other, we can all learn to be ambidextrous. your are that way because you just feel more comfortable/experienced doing certain things with one hand than the other, it’s a formation of neuromuscular habit.
it’s just a matter of practice, but yes, as children the adults around us often DEMAND we be one or the other. just like they demand gendered behaviors, etc. And children conform because adults like conformity.
it’s interesting as an adult, like getting coaching and having to re-learn basic bio mechanics you ‘assume’ are some sort of default, because well, nobody ever told/taught you you could/should be doing things differently. like there are different way to hold pens for different styles of writing…
not any different really when say, comes to language use and accents. you have a ‘native’ one you got from your upbringing, but you can unlearn it and a lot of people do because they won’t gain social acceptance if they retain it. when I code switch to my ‘native’ speech… people freak out because it offends them because I’m supposed to sound smart and ‘educated’ , not like a stupid working-class hick. and of course, the first year i came back from college all my family/friends basically asked me why i was such a douchebag and talked so pretentiously…
I don’t believe that’s true - handedness is a real thing. You might be able to learn to perform well enough with the other at something with practice, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a naturally dominant hand for most people.