Is being left-handed going to be more difficult for my son?
My boy is 16 months and I have noticed he is left-handed. He can scribble well using a pen and some crayon with his left hand. I also noticed whenever I gave him a spoon to feed himself he would move it to the left hand and eat well.
Back in our place, due to misinformation, left-handed people would be forced to learn how to use the right hand and be beaten. I was wondering if this happens in the USA and will the situation be
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I have a daughter that is a "southpaw." We stated it up front to her teachers in school, and she hasn't had any problem. In our kids classroom, the scissors are ambidextrous.
The hardest part for her is using her right hand to use a computer mouse. I think this is an okay thing to make her use her right hand for, since all computers she encounters (that aren't her own) will automatically be set up for right-handed mouse usage, so she needs to get used to using a right-handed mouse.
Other than that, we haven't had any major issues with her being left-handed.
Nowadays in the US, it is extremely rare to encounter prejudice against left-handed students. It does happen (there was a preschooler in Oklahoma in 2015 whose teacher told him the left hand was evil), but is very rare.
I do recommend that you mention it to teachers -- often in preschool or kindergarten when beginning to teach writing, they default to putting a pencil in the right hand. Being alerted that he needs to be taught a little differently will help both the teachers and your son.
The biggest challenge your son is likely to face is that some things (e.g., scissors, can openers) are primarily designed with right-handed users in mind. There are alternative designs specifically for "lefties", though, so keep an eye out for them.
While there isn't much explicit prejudice against left handers in the U.S., there are minor day to day advantages to being right handed. Often doors, tools, and other aspects of everyday life are by default designed for right handed people.
If you are worried about it, you can affect the developing handedness of a child up at least up to age 2 or 3. Early on, it only takes a small amount of gentle encouragement to get a toddler to prefer to use the right hand by default. Asking them to use the spoon in their right hand at the dinner table is an easy way to start. We did this when a couple of our kids started out trying to use tools with their left hands, and it has not caused any problems.
Later when handedness is more well established, it may not be such a good idea to try to change it.
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