Thread: handedness

Both mine favoured a hand from early on, certainly by the time they were at preschool, Thomas his left and Leo his right.

DS2 at five still colours with his other (left) hand when his right gets tired, but he generally swaps back again as if it's just not the same...

DS1 at nearly twelve annoys the heck out of me by eating left handed. I think this is something he got into the habit of when I was still concentrating a lot on helping DS2 at mealtimes. DH sees no problem with it because HE eats lefthanded, so any comments I make about it he takes as a personal slight. But DS1 is definitely right handed, and it's obvious that his right hand is dominant, because when he eats with a knife and fork he holds the food down with his knife (in left hand) and pulls bits off with the fork (in right hand), instead of holding things down with the fork while he cuts with the knife. So to my mind this is slovenly and poor table manners and I come over very old fashioned about it and make him change back to the "right" way, and he says I'll damage his brain and give him a stutter...

My daughter does that, Jen. She is right handed, except for knife and fork useage. (She's 22).

mine both right, and both from early on, certainly well before 7. both crap at writing though

its not genetic though - or at least not entirely. I studied this a bit when I did my biology degree, I can't remember the percentages, but if you have right handed parents, you were something like 20% likely to be left handed. Two left handed parents, about 60% likely to be left handed, and one of each parent, about 30% likely to be left handed, which indicates a genetic link - but then, if you have two left handed parents, you are likely to be influenced in how you write, as they help you to write, so it could equally be environment

But when they then looked at identical twins - ie, have same genetic makeup so should both be the same, it was only slightly higher than non identical twins, which also indicates a non genetic reason

Im sure I heard recently they had identified a gene that linked to left handedness - not directly causal though, just a link

probably a nice nature : nurture unsolvable one!

DS is left handed and eats right handed!!

I have ident twin nephews, one leftie one rightie!

My Ds is left handed but we are both righthanded as are the girls,luckily his reception teacher was lefthanded so could help with his writing but the dinner ladies kept telling him off for using the "wrong hands" for his knife and fork i had to go up and have words several times before they left him to do it his way! you would have thought they would have been used to lefties !