Accueil - Parenting - Left-handed upset
Date : 07 Jul 2024Categories : ParentingScience
As if our children weren’t annoying enough! If you’re reading these pages, it’s likely that you’re sympathetic to the cause of left-handed people, and particularly to that of the left-handed contrarian. So, all I can do is give you a few arguments for your dinners out or to counter your dear mother-in-law who still thinks being left-handed is a defect…
In France, left-handed children have been forced to write with their right hand for ages and well into the 20th century. The association lesgauchers.com and Dr Michel Galobardès jointly carried out a study in 2005 which revealed that a significant percentage of left-handers had been ‘thwarted’ during their childhood, often at school. After the war and up until the 1970s, teachers and sometimes parents forced left-handers to write with their right hand, in the belief that this would help them adapt to the right-handed world.
When you raise the subject of left-handedness in society, which obviously happens all the time, you realise just how many left-handed people were thwarted as children and remember traumatic practices that in some cases affected their motor development or their self-confidence. These stories can also be found in the press or on online forums. For example, Jean-Pierre Fournier recounts how, from primary school onwards, his left arm was tied up to prevent him from writing with his natural hand (Notretemps.com). Other accounts confirm that this practice, and even worse ones, was widespread and left lasting scars on the individuals concerned (lesgauchers.com) (Notretemps.com).
Fortunately, there are fewer and fewer frustrated left-handers, but ask around, and you’ll find that many people over the age of 60 have been left-handed.
Lateralization, strictly speaking, develops late in the human infant, roughly around the age when the child begins to want to attack everything within reach: knick-knacks inherited from great-grandmother, books tediously classified by collection, author, color, size, any dangerous object forgotten on the edge of the coffee table, and/or spoonful of carrot purée. For a long time, laterality was confused with lateralization. But it’s a scientifically established fact that, barring an accident, you don’t become left-handed, but you are born left-handed. Studies have shown that the brains of right-handers and left-handers are different, a priori in utero.
Opposing a left-handed child is often done out of a good sense of ‘making life easier’, as we live in a right-handed world. In reality, the opposite is true.
It is now estimated that not only 15-17% of the population are left-handed, but that a further 3-4% are false right-handers who are in fact left-handers who have been thwarted from an early age. Depending on the study, left-handedness could be as high as 20% or even 25% of the population.
Left-handers account for 20 à 25 % of the population
False right-handers’ represent 3 to 4 % of the population
Figures taken from the book ‘Comprendre et accompagner l’élève gaucher’, Dr Michel Galobardès, Hachette éducation, 2014
So why shouldn’t we upset left-handers? Because left-handed people are born left-handed, and whether they are annoyed or not, they will encounter the same difficulties, if not worse.
Being left-handed is neither an anomaly nor a weakness, on the contrary. We’re just anti-clockwise. We think and experience the world in the opposite direction to right-handed people. If you cross a left-handed person, you mess up their brain, where the motor and spatial centres are side by side in the right hemisphere – hence the speed of action and sporting prowess! This is not just a problem for the handwriting of the contrarian; he may go on to develop stammering or other psycho-affective disorders, linked to all these disturbances that he would probably not have experienced if his laterality had been respected.
So why shouldn’t we upset left-handers? Because left-handed people are left-handed from birth and, whether they are annoyed or not, they will experience the same difficulties, if not worse.
Contrary left-handedness and dyslexia are terms that are often linked. Dyslexia is a learning disability characterised by difficulties in reading and writing. Studies suggest a link between annoyance and dyslexia due to a disturbance in brain function. The brains of left-handed people work differently from those of right-handed people. Forcing a left-handed child to write with the right hand can affect the areas of the brain linked to learning to read and write and could increase the risk of developing dyslexia.
Stammering could be influenced by left-handed contrariness because of the disruption of neural circuits. If a child is forced to use his right hand rather than his left, this can lead to additional cognitive pressure and create psychological tension that could aggravate problems with verbal fluency.
Anxiety, depression, loss of self-esteem and even other psychological consequences… Left-handed people who are thwarted may be more vulnerable to this type of disorder. Feelings of frustration are ‘normal’ for all children, but they are exacerbated in left-handed contrarians, who may feel rejected and misunderstood. Studies have shown that thwarted left-handers may have higher than average levels of stress and anxiety, and they may find it difficult to adapt socially, constantly having to fight against their natural instincts. Like teenagers, but much younger and less soft!
It is possible to regain your original laterality, including when writing. All it takes is a little exercise and training. You can do the same thing in the other direction, counteracting your right hand, particularly when writing.
Let’s remember that our children are unique, often frustrated. Let’s allow our future little geniuses in mathematics, fencing or tennis, with an extraordinary artistic sense, to express their left-handedness and give them the opportunity to live it well by offering them the right tools! As Pierre Desproges said: ‘I’m a left-handed contrarian. I can’t help it. I have to annoy right-handed people.’