One of the challenges I face in my work is helping parents to accept the left handedness of their children. There are physiological reasons for them to choose left hand as the dominant hand for activities of daily living. It can be also because of an insult to the left side of the brain that a child is forced to use left hand.
In either case the family, neighbours and all those who watch a child use the left hand feel pressured to force a child use the right hand even when a child is conditioned physiologically or due to an insult to use the left hand!
I have been keen to find the reason for this compulsive insistence for a child to use the right hand for daily living activities. The best explanation I have so far come across is that culturally we are made to to think that the left hand is a 'dirty hand' and the right and is the 'good hand'!
Many children who have clumsy handwriting or struggle to eat from a plate without spilling are those who were originally destined to be left handers but made to use the right hand from early childhood. Even after years of efforts they have not been able to master the dexterous skills with the right hand!
I wish parents, teachers and rest of us would be freed form our cultural bondage and release children to use their preferred hand with no interference or prejudice !
M.C.Mathew (text and photo)
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