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From: sct@lanl.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.kids
Subject: Re: Changing Left-handedness to Right-handedness
Message-ID: <29639@lanl.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 14-Aug-85 10:15:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: lanl.29639
Posted: Wed Aug 14 10:15:43 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Aug-85 05:25:36 EDT
References: <1076@ihlpg.UUCP>
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 36

> > 
> > A friend's preschooler always seemed to prefer using his left hand.
> > His mother has been trying to change him into a right hander.
> > She bought him a toy baseball glove for right handers, and when she
> > takes out the coloring books, she instructs him to use his right hand
> > "so he'll have fewer problems when he goes to schood."
> > When he was a toddler, she refused to hand him any candy, toys,
> > or other objects until he finally reached with his right hand.
> > 
> > 
> > 	Frank Silbermann
> 
> My God!  I thought that sort of thing went out long ago.  I know that long ago
> (the Victorian Era) left handedness was considered evil.  (The French word for
> left comes from the same Latin root that we get the word sinister).  Children
> used to be forced to use their right hands.  I have heard that this is quite
> detremental.  I think it's terrible to punish a child for trying do something
> the way his body is telling him to.  I think it would do a lot more harm than
> good to force a child to be right-handed when his natural inclination is
> toward left-handedness.  What's so wrong with being left-handed?  Some of my
> best friends are left-handed.  They don't seem to have any problems with it.

	I have a friend who is left handed and he once told me that, as a child,
his parents tried to get him to be right-handed.  During the process he started
to stutter and kept stuttering until he went back to being left handed.  My 
mother 
in law was forced to write right-handed and, although she doesn't stutter, her
penmanship is terrible.  I cannot read it so my wife has to decipher it.

	My son is showing a tendancy to use his left hand and I intend to let
him stay that way.  There's nothing wrong with being left handed except for
having to live in a right handed world.

	By the way, during the Middle Ages being left handed was considered 
to be connected with the devil.  The word 'sinister' comes from an old 
French word meaning left handed.