Life counterclockwise

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

The choice of right or left hand dominance is not a whim of humanity. This is due to the distribution of roles between the cerebral hemispheres. This is inherent in a person from birth. About 90% of the world's inhabitants have a leading right hand, only 10% are better at using their left. In the old days, that 1/10 of people were considered clumsy, prone to intrigue, insincere. Even today, the word "left" is often used to mean "wrong" or "wrong."

If your child is left-handed, what to do? You can do nothing, you can rejoice, but, most likely, in such a situation it is best to think and find answers to several questions.

1. Is the child really left-handed?

If you observe babies, you will notice that some of them immediately give preference to one or another hand. Others do not make much of a distinction and use both right and left handles equally often. The process of choosing the leading hand in such children, as a rule, lasts up to three years, but, as you know, there are exceptions and not uncommon from the rules. Therefore, the selection process can take up to six years. As a result, several percent of people live on our planet who are equally good at using both hands.

You can use a few simple exercises to determine your child's preference. To complete them, you must sit opposite the child, and put the objects that will be used in the exercises in front of the child strictly in the center. And, most importantly, do not rush the child. The exercises are performed as a game: you can put a comb and invite the child to comb his hair; put a piece of paper and a pencil and ask to draw something; put down the clock and invite the child to listen to how they tick; put a paper tube and offer to look through the "telescope"; put the ball and ask to throw it at some target. During the game, it is very convenient to observe which hand the child performs the exercises with more often, to which eye he will bring the tube, with which ear he will listen to the clock. This method will determine the leading party.

2. To retrain or not to retrain?

This is the second question that torments the parents of the baby, who reaches for the toy with his left hand, shifts the spoon from his right hand to his left, draws doodles on the wallpaper, holding a pencil in his left hand. The very first and most important thing is to remember: "As I was born, so I came in handy!" The first thing that needs to be understood is that in no case should you torture a child, make him forcibly "right-handed". If we sketch a simplified brain control scheme for our body, we get the following fact: the left hemisphere of the brain controls the right side of the body, and the right hemisphere controls the left side. This is a very conditional scheme, but it also makes it clear that the process of retraining interferes with the work of the child's brain. It is also known that the right and left hemispheres of the human brain are responsible for various areas of mental activity. The leading left hemisphere, which controls the right hand, the right eye, is responsible for conscious, for concrete thinking, logical thinking, speech, reading and writing, for the motor sphere. The right hemisphere, which controls the left hand, the left eye, is for the unconscious, for abstract thinking, figurative memory, the perception of rhythm, music, intonation, for orientation in space, for the sensory sphere.

Many psychiatrists, physiologists, psychologists and educators have scientifically substantiated the refusal to retrain left-handed children and argue that the forced retraining of left-handed children inflicts psychological trauma on many of them.

Irritability, irascibility, moodiness, tearfulness, increased fatigue, sleep and appetite disturbances, headaches - this bouquet will be presented to their child by parents who decide to do a "change of hands".

3. How to overcome the difficulties that a left-handed child will have to face in our "right-handed" world?

There are plenty of difficulties in the life of a left-hander, both small and large. It is enough that all objects are invented and adapted specifically for the leading right hand. But it turns out that these are the "easiest" difficulties that children cope with the fastest. Remember how many drivers change into foreign cars with left-hand drive and quickly master the unusual driving. Remember how right-handed people learn to use a fork and knife. Likewise, a left-handed child quickly learns to cope with "right" subjects. It is more difficult for a left-handed child to master reading, speaking and writing, which can cause difficulties at school. These difficulties are often resolved naturally or with the help of a trained educator. At present, quite a lot of attention is paid to this problem: methods of teaching writing with the left hand are being drawn up, the production of special prescriptions is being established, and special literature is being produced for teachers and parents. At home and at school, it is necessary to create special conditions for the child: give him a place at a desk or table on the left side so that he does not collide with the right elbow of a neighbor; make sure that the light from a window or from a table lamp falls on his workstation from the right side. But besides these problems, there are psychological problems. The child begins to understand early that he is not like everyone else. There is no need to focus his attention on this fact. It is enough to tell the child once that there are many left-handed people, that this is a normal phenomenon, and there is no difference in which hand a person eats (writes, draws), right or left, the main thing is that he knows how to do it.

4. Are lefties really gifted, talented people?

Lefties are often artistically gifted children, they are very emotional, often they have perfect pitch and musical ability. You can turn your parental attention to the search for talents and gifts from your child, but in no case overdo it in this matter. Like any child, a left-handed baby needs to be praised for success and achievements, to encourage his creative aspirations, but in no case should you try to raise a child prodigy out of your child. As with any child, such a baby should not be particularly exaggerated and should not be opposed to other children. And, of course, work with your child, play, read, create, love him, and a creative personality will grow out of him.

However, J. Herron, the largest researcher of the problem of left-handedness, added a fly in the ointment to the honey listed above: “Like any minority, left-handers inspire hostility, suspicion, the impression of the absence of any human virtues and skills. They often become psychoneurotics, epileptics, stutterers; and reading, write in mirror, find it difficult to orientate in space, drawing; stubborn, dishonest, homo- and bisexual. But Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo are left-handed …"

That is why left-handers require constant monitoring of their health (including hormonal and immune status). Ideally, such a child should be shown to a psychologist so that he can select individual correction exercises. But a lot also depends on the correct position of the parents.

Left-handed children differ from ordinary ones:

- increased sensitivity;

- increased vulnerability;

- excessive impressionability;

- anxiety;

- touchiness;

- irritability;

- reduced performance;

- increased fatigue.

5. And finally

I advise parents to read Alice Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll with their child. The features of the spatial representations of a left-handed child are very clearly described there. It will be interesting for the kid and useful for his parents to understand how a little left-hander feels and represents himself in the world.