If you have a kiddo who is left-handed, celebrate Left Handers Day on August 13th by sharing these cool kid facts that make being a leftie totally awesome!
To All the Awesome Left-Handed Kids Everywhere
This was written just for you because we wanted you to know some of the reasons why you’re so lucky to be left-handed!
1. You were probably left-handed in your Mom’s tummy. Unborn babies show off in ultrasounds by moving their left arm and hand more than their right. Ask your Mom or Dad if you waved at them before you were born.
2. Southpaw is a fun word you can use to describe yourself. It sounds a little like there might be an animal called South! Nope. What it actually means is that you are left-handed.
3. Kids who use their left hands might be better at video games. That’s crazy! It has to do with how information moves around in your brain.
4. Some people in your family are probably left-handed. That’s because using your left-hand runs in families. Who is it in your family?
5. There have been plenty of US presidents who were left-handed. Herbert Hoover, Harry S. Truman, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan (who wrote with his right hand), George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama are all lefties.
6. You get to have special scissors if you want. In fact, they are made especially for kids like you!
Only 10% of people in the whole world are left-handed. You’re so special!
7. People who are left-handed get their own special day! It’s true! International Left-Handers Day is celebrated on August 13 each year. Make sure you celebrate!
8. Coaches love having lefties on their teams. If you can bat, pitch, catch, throw, with your left hand, it’s harder for kids who use their right hands to know what to expect!
9. The best seat in the restaurant booth is always yours. You know why? When you use your left hand to eat, you sort of elbow the person sitting to your left. Of course, they don’t want to keep getting poked in the ribs by your elbow, so they’ll give you the outside seat.
On Left Handers Day, ask everyone in your family to eat supper using only their left hand! FUN!
10. There have always been lots of left-handed major league baseball players. Babe Ruth was left-handed, and so was Lou Gehrig. Are you good at baseball?
11. Lots of super-smart people in history were (and are) lefties. Of course, Albert Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci are two of the most famous lefties from before you were born.
12. It’s possible you can solve all sorts of problems faster. People who are left-handed seem to be able to come up with a lot of solutions to one problem. That’s amazing!
13. Do you love singing? Some say lefties can remember songs better. Can you guess what a song is after only hearing a few notes?
14. Betcha you like to win more than some of your friends. It’s evolution at work. You might be more competitive than your right-handed friends.
Colorful pencil grips for lefties will make writing easier for you.
15. Are you a good dancer? Part of that could be true because you are a southpaw.
16. Imagination is fun, and you’re probably very good at it. That’s right! Lefties often have very creative minds.
17. Are you really good at remembering directions to places? Thanks, left hand.
18. The man who invented the iPhone was left-handed. The guy who invented Facebook was also a southpaw. What are you going to invent, my young left-handed friend? Believe in yourself and let your brain go wild!
A 2013 study found that lefties have better “mental flexibility, inhibitory control, and working memory operations” — this makes lefties master multiple tasks and great leaders!
How many lefties are in your family?
Are you a southpaw? Any leftie tips and tricks you’d want to share to help kids learn to appreciate their specialness?
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27 comments on “18 Crazy Cool Things Every Left-Handed Kiddo Should Know”
I am left handed, had 4 children. 3 of the 4 children are left handed. Both of my biological parents and sisters are right handed. I was adopted by 2 right handers. They adopted me and my younger sister(unrelated. Guess what? My adopted sister was left handed.
I am the only left handed person in my family free or as many generations as I can find. Over the years, I have made a sort of study of right handed things, as most of the world is. One I recently realized is that to put a key in a door is definitely right handed oriented. Just a bit of trivia. I am 91 and still cut with scissors with my right hand, as there were no left handed ones then. But, I am definitely left handed otherwise. In the 6th grade my penmanship teacher told me I needed to learn to write with my right hand, and I replied “I was too old to change”. End of discussion. When i first started writing, I wrote upside down and can still do it. Enough rattling about my lefty experiences.
This is so interesting! Thank you Patti for sharing!
I’m left handed. My grandmother was left handed. None of my children or ,so far, grandchildren are lefties. I feel quite disappointed about this strangely!
The brain is an interesting thing! I am the only lefty in two generations- yet I am actually ambidextrous- I can write with both hands-dominant left- but have the strange ability to write with both at the same time. Stranger yet…one way fowards and one backwards. Like Leonardo DaVinci- I can mirror write! I have often wondered what the brain is doing that allows this strange ability!Always just figured I was quirky! At least I have an excuse for not knowing if I’m coming, or going-as I do both at the same time!! 😉
Wow that is extraordinary!!!
Can you be left handed even if both of your parents are right handed
Yep. My parents are both right handed.
My brother is the only left handed person in our entire family history (both maternal and paternal). Not one of his three children or 7 grandchildren are left handed.
I love being left handed! I know for sure is why I have solutions that sorta seem off the wall; People even occasionally laugh like I’m a nut! I write poetry and song lyrics with ease! Love it lefty again! I design leaded glass and it’s always far’out! Went through college hardly studying at all and maintained a 3.7 throughout! If it sounds like I’m bragging, okay ☺️
I am 1 of 5 siblings, 4 of us are left handed. Our parents were both right handed. I have a left handed grandson. I have a very creative imagination and write stories. My siblings are artistic, and musical.
We often see a situation different than most people. Holding a pen and pencil can be hard. It is nice to have some help with the pencil when you start out.
I love the fact that so many of our recent President’s have been left handed also. I like being unique! There are many advantages to being left handed.
My son uses both
Being a ‘Southpaw’ is awesome! And we are very adaptable! Don’t worry about always having the ruler the wrong way around or the awkwardness of doing little jobs!
We have better perception skills, making it a lot easier to copy others…we can learn to do things Right-handed (apart from Crochet for me) and wow everyone! You are special and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!!
My mother, two brothers and myself are all left handed
Yup, my second child is a lefty and fits all the criteria listed! He flew F18s in the Navy and said it is easier to fly it if one is a lefty.
Yes indeed. I was hired to teach as an adjunct professor of astronomy in 2004 at a university here in Portland Oregon my hometown. They put us as new faculty through a special class on the human brain. The woman teaching the class was a nurse with a husband that is a brain surgeon. I had to ask her about my left-handedness because I’ve been reading for many years that in the history books most of the greatest achieved people in mini areas and Fields show the tops of all these lists as left-handed people. Artist scientist writers performers such as actors and comedians sports figures, if you look at the tops of the list of all these feels and more it is usually held in the record books as left-handed people. I asked the woman teaching the class on the human brain if this was a coincidence. And with her husband is a brain surgeon she told me this information. There is a famous theory in medical studies known as the doctor Norman Geschwind theory. This doctor performed studies of woman’s amniotic fluids in the early 1980s. he found that there was high testosterone presence in some of these mother’s amniotic fluids and that this high testosterone presents had a casual effect on suppressing the left lateral hemisphere of the brain growth at precisely six weeks after conception as this allowed the right hemisphere brain to grow or become more active and larger and with also growing more permanent wiring from the right hemisphere over to the left hemisphere. They found at this shows up well before birth, at about 8 months before birth. So truly born left-handers have this innate ability in what some have called gifted to us. However left handedness also runs a higher incidence of autism, Asperger’s, dyslexia, and bipolar. Yet if you check the lists of great left-handers many famously known ones, Bill Gates of Microsoft and his colleague Paul Allen Steve Jobs of Apple the famous comedic actor and director Woody Allen the famous rock star David Byrne other famous musicians such as Glenn Gould the classical Prodigy pianist from Eastern Canada, the actor Tom Cruise, and many other famous people, are diagnosed with Asperger’s and dyslexia and yes some of these famous affirmation names here are actually diagnosed with mild bipolar. I’m a left-hander I was a left-handed pitcher in Little League my astronomy art produced through observations at my telescopes has been published in NASA websites and was just published recently in the new May 2020 issue of Sky & Telescope magazine. I’ve spoken many times on National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation program, about my astronomy art and my Public Service as sidewalk astronomy that I perform for the public here in my hometown of Portland Oregon Across the Nation in overseas in recent years.
Please excuse me, as I meant to edit my comment for typos and grammatical errors. Although it doesn’t seem to allow editing here after the comment is published.
*Where I wrote above: greatest achieved people in _*mini_ areas…*should be achieved people in _*many_ areas …
*Also in my final sentence, _*in_ overseas should be *_and_ overseas …
My grandmother, my dad and me are all lefties
This was awesome to read. I am a lefty and it opened my eyes to all the awesomeness of being a lefty
I am the only lefty in my family, for generations. I wasn’t given any special scissors. They cost more than my parents could afford. I learned to use the scissors we had. Now I can’t make left-handed scissors do anything except bend paper. My tip is to use what’s at hand. Learn to adapt to the rest of the world. There are morr of them around. Have fun with your left-handedness. By the way, I’m 67 years old. I’ve had a lot of practice being a lefty.
My oldest daughter and her husband are both right-handed, but all 3 kids are lefties!! My 2nd daughter is ambidextrous, her oldest son is the same, two daughters are right, and youngest is right. My youngest daughter is a leftie!! I’m a rightie, and so was their dad.
I’m a mother of twin boy they are 36 yrs old one is right handed n the other one left handed I call them mirrored twins .Both are smart.
My husband and I are bother left handed as well as all 3 of our children!!!!
My wife and I are both lefties. We have 4 kids, and 3 of them are lefties! The 4th is 4 years old and uses both hands.
Re the best seat in a restaurant booth. The outside seat doesn’t work that way for dueling elbows.
Face the booth table. Sit on the end if you sit on the right. Slide in first if you sit on the left.
I’m not a lefty but regularly dine with one. Lesson learned by trial and error.
We they teach them to write, to put the paper in the correct position for them. Will save a lot of frustration later on.