What if the child is left-handed?

"Your child is left-handed." "What shall we do now?" - this question worries many parents. Why is this worry caused by the left-handedness of the child? On left-handed people, in many cases, they are viewed with undisguised interest, and it is easy to imagine what a person feels, forced to feel the unnecessary to him, and sometimes undue attention to themselves around them. Usually parents react quite anxiously to the appearance of signs of left-handedness in their child. Often, in his presence, they discuss the emerging perspective, worrying about the future of the child. From a young age, he begins to be imbued with an inferiority complex, trying to hide his left-handedness, like a sin of some kind.

It can be recalled that in the distant past, because of the ignorance and fanaticism of people, left-handed people were persecuted and ostracized, and the devil was necessarily left-handed.

Apparently, these remnants are rooted in the vestiges of people's consciousness, the echo of which is the cautious attitude toward the left-handed in our day. No wonder so far the words "left-handed", "left" in many languages remained synonymous with ineptitude, irregularity, hack-work. But at all times, as history shows, there were many outstanding personalities among left-handed people (Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, Charlie Chaplin and physiologist I. Pavlov, compiler of the famous dictionary V. Dahl, etc.)

What is left-handedness? According to modern ideas, this is a relatively rare occurrence of laterality (one-sidedness) of motor behavior, when a person in all his actions steadily prefers to use his left hand. Both left-handedness and right-handedness are based on the features of brain function - functional asymmetry (in the motor analyzer system). With the asymmetry of the brain, there is a manifestation of laterality-the allocation of the leading hand, ear, eye and other manifestations of this one-sidedness. Being formed during the pre-natal period of development, left-handedness is subsequently fixed in the course of the child's age changes, while factors of the environment play a certain role. It is well known that the majority of the population is right-handed (90-95%), and if right-handedness is considered one of the species's human characteristics, left-handedness is a deviation on this basis. However, it does not in itself belong to the number of pathological, but is a variant of the norm.

As rarely as left-handedness, ambi-dextria occurs. This phenomenon is characterized by a lack of a steady preference for any of the hands or using only the right hand for some actions, and for others only the left one. In ancient times, as rock paintings, frescoes and papyruses testify, lefties were about five to eight people per hundred. These figures, in general, are close to today's. In different regions of the former USSR, the adult population of left-handed people numbered from 2-3 to 7-8%. It is interesting to note that left-handedness in boys, as a rule, occurs twice as often as in girls. A survey of 800 Moscow schoolchildren of different age groups showed that among them, at the age of 7-9 years, there were about 11% of lefties. True, with age, the number of left-handed people decreases (by the age of 16-17, it is already 3.4%, which coincides with the data obtained in the survey of adults).

What is the reason for the decrease in the number of left-handed people with age? After all, many factors indicate that they are already born with left-handedness. This may be due to the protracted hands of some children (in this case right), in other words, with "false" left-handedness. However, the main reason for the "thawing" of figures is, apparently, the still incomplete retraining of left-handed people, especially in the primary classes of the school.

Violent retraining of left-handed children, and thus forced change of the existing system of brain work, leads, as a rule, to undesirable consequences. True, some children tolerate retraining almost painlessly, but many pay dearly for it at a high price. Thus, the parents of left-handed children often complain of a change in their child's condition: "He suddenly became irritable, quick-tempered, moody, tearful, sleeps badly, eats, especially in the morning." These troubles began soon after he was retrained. " In addition to disturbing the emotional sphere, retraining is often accompanied by other complications: stuttering, urinary incontinence, skin diseases. There are complaints of headaches, fatigue in the right hand, increased fatigue and reduced efficiency. Such children are five to six times more likely to suffer from neuroses. Usually enthusiastically embarking on studies in the first grade, the child soon encounters a number of difficulties, and first of all in mastering the skills of writing with his right hand. As a rule, he writes slowly, without observing the rules of calligraphy, with visible physical efforts, repeatedly speaking to himself every word. These children usually lag behind the right-handed peers in carrying out written assignments both in the classroom and at home. Sometimes they lag behind in the acquisition of reading skills, because they unconsciously strive to guess the first two letters to guess the word, and not to read it by syllables. Other sensorimotor signs of leftism accompanying left-handedness intensify these manifestations. Bad progress in school and the wrong behavior of others can lead to the fact that the left-handed first-grader who is being re-educated has lost the desire to learn. There may be an aversion to the letter, the desire to avoid classes, including absenteeism. Over time, however, most of the children who are being re-educated are gradually mastering the writing skills of the right hand, and the acuity of neurotic reactions and experiences is somewhat smoothed out. It would seem that success justifies retraining? But this success can be achieved at a very high price: the stress of many does not pass without a trace. Invasion of the delicate mechanism of nervous activity can cause a delay in the child's mental development.

According to the testimony of domestic and foreign scientists, in the personality of such left-handed children, undesirable changes associated with the period of retraining are fixed, and in terms of their intellectual-mnestic capabilities they are inferior to both left-handed and right-handed people. The results of studying the characteristics of left-handed execution of written assignments with the right and left hand showed that when working with the right hand all left-handed people (including those who already considered it the presenter of the letter) perform written tasks more slowly and with more errors. At the same time there was a strain in various muscle groups that were not used in writing, heart palpitations, and short-term elevations of blood pressure were observed. Sometimes the case ended with the children interrupting the execution of a written assignment. With the left hand they acted dexterously and successfully: there were fewer mistakes, and the letter did not cause unpleasant emotions. The use of the left hand by left-handers of the zero and first grades of the school improves the quality of written work by 20-30%. Their left hand is often more "literate" than the right one.

All the facts cited indicate that one should not struggle with left-handedness and retrain left-handed, one must tolerate the left-handed letter and create a favorable environment surrounded by left-handed people. The retraining of a left-handed child entails many negative consequences. So, in an unexpected, stressful situation, the retrained left-hander will instinctively stretch out his left hand, but in fact she has already lost her old skill, she is detoured.

Parents and educators of preschool institutions are the first to face the fact that the child prefers the left hand. They should take into account that the majority of children up to three or five years of age are marked by periods of false deforestation (pseudoambidextria) when they use both hands in gaming and self-service without giving preference to any of them. This period reflects a certain stage of development of the nervous system (in particular, the motor analyzer). At this time, you can still try to carefully teach the alleged ambidextrous right-handed actions. However, these attempts should proceed without any violence, dictatorship, or shouting. If the child constantly resists these attempts, they must be abandoned.

On the signs of left-handedness seen by the child, parents or educators should inform the pediatrician as soon as possible. The left-hander should be consulted by a pediatric neurologist. He will decide whether the left-handedness of this child is natural or is the result of a disorder of the central nervous system, requiring as early as possible special treatment. The question of left-handedness of a child is especially acute before entering school. Therefore, at the age of six years, a more detailed special diagnosis of left-handedness is carried out. How to be in case of detection of left-handedness in a child? Much depends on the parents. It is necessary to keep a calm atmosphere in the family, family members should discuss this fact in the absence of the child without involving him in the discussion of adults, as little as possible to fix attention to his unusualness or exclusivity, to come to the aid if the children in the yard tease and humiliate him, and if possible to defuse the current situation.

Everywhere - in the family, preschool and school establishments, it is necessary to encourage the use of left-handed children of the leading hand by mastering the letter, drawing, modeling, while training the work skills. It is necessary to allocate the left-handed child at the table, the desk seat on the left side, so that he does not encounter the right elbow of the neighbor. Labor lessons require safety in the workplace in the calculation of left-handed students. At home, organizing a place for classes, doing lessons, it is necessary to make sure that the light from the window or desk lamp falls on the right side.

It is noteworthy that some of the left-handed children, who already have sufficient horizons, have a satisfactory memory and are good at speaking, there are signs of "mirror" thinking. It is expressed in an inverted, inverted from right to left writing of individual letters and whole words, in permutation of numbers when performing arithmetic operations. This is a stubborn reading of words from right to left, and with closed eyes - the best guessing of letters in "mirror writing". In such children, in addition, the late differentiation of the concepts "right" and "left" is observed, the difficulty of orienting on the terrain, the difficulty in planning their behavior.

It is extremely important, both in the family and in the school, to tolerate such manifestations. It is necessary to lower the requirements to the calligraphic side of the handwriting of left-handed children - to allow vertical writing of letters, the slope of the handwriting to the left. Often parents ask a question: how to teach left-handed children a letter with their left hand, are there any rules here? There are no special rules yet. However, there are basically two manners of left-handed writing. In the more common - the left hand is in a position similar to the one written with the right hand. The sheet of paper in this case is located along the left hand with a slant to the right, while the hand of the writer is under the line. In another, so-called inverse manner of writing, a sheet of paper relative to the chest of the writer is tilted to the left, the hand and the pen are above the line, and the brush is turned towards the chest. When teaching a letter to a left-handed child, it is necessary to suggest that he himself choose the manner of writing, in which he does not lag behind in the speed of writing from right-handed children and who is more comfortable with it.

In the game environment of the preschool child and in extra-curricular activities, the characteristics of the temperament of left-handed children should be taken into account - increased emotionality with the weakening of inhibitory processes.

To retrain or not retrain left-handed children? The main thing is not to create a stressful child. And it is always necessary to re-educate, or rather, adapt the child to a future life. After all, the whole world around us is arranged taking into account right-handedness: special equipment, machines, appliances, household items. A number of cases are known when left-handers were forced to leave work, as they could not adapt to equipment.