The floors of the living space of our home is completely
laid with marble, cut out of limestone, and polished to a silvery sheen. It was
cool for the tropics and for the hot day.
But it was also slippery, especially if water is spilt on to
it.
That was why, one fine day, our baby boy Vin who was barely
a toddler at three years old, stepped on his spilt drink from his plastic cup,
and fell.
The doctor diagnosed a slight fracture on his left hand, and
after a few days in a sling, the fracture healed by itself as it was very
slight, and he was well again.
That taught us a lesson of home safety for kids. Always
ensure the floors are dry if they are not carpeted.
But there was more to this.
I discovered Nature had a way to compensate for the
fracture. Very soon, it seemed Vin liked to use his left hand that had been
fractured before more often than his right, and that became his strong hand.
He was using his left hand for writing, for playing with the
crayons, and for holding his toys.
He was a "leftie"!
Questions raced through my mind.
Should I train him against his natural desires to be
ambivalent - to use both hands for writing? Would it be harmful to him
emotionally and personally? How would this affect him when he is older? Would
he resent having been forced against his will?
What a dilemma it was!
Let us see what the German advice center for left-handers,
"The Green Cross" in Marburg said.
The first test to apply is to identify the left-handed
child. This is easily done by observing with which hand he first spontaneously
grabs a toy.
Having identified a left-handed child positively, support
the child by helping him with writing and painting exercises.
Left-handed kids have tensed-up hand position. When they
write with their left hand, they get tensed up easier because they find it
harder to see what they are writing.
Therefore, the parent should lay the paper to the left of
the child, and clockwise about 30 degrees to the right, with the hand held
below the line on which the child is writing.
Teach the child to use his right hand to hold the paper on
the right side.
Should a parent force the left handed child to use his
right?
The Green Cross emphasized that parents must never force and
try to train a left-handed child to become right-handed. Reasons?
The left-handed child will start to have concentration
problems and difficulties, and also develop negative psychological effects
later on in life.
Did I force my son to be ambidextrous and to use both his
hands for writing?
When he was 10 years old, I took him to the largest
Left-Handed Shop in the world. It was located in The Quay, in Sydney Harbor
area. He was beaming with all the toys, the utensils and everything else that
was designed for the left-handed world. Here inside this shop, he was able to
find everything designed to meet his needs as a left-hander.
To this day, Vin is still left-handed and writes beautifully
with his left hand.
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