Your Other Left

My mom - the 25 year veteran teacher who holds a degree in Early Childhood Development - has been citing studies for years that say that if a child still confuses his right and left sides by age 6, there is little to no chance that the child will ever be able to tell right from left without really having to think about it. She spent most of her career teaching 2nd and 3rd grade. She said that by the time kids got to her class, they either had right and left, or they just didn't.

Honestly, Mom and I don't really need a study to tell us that. Unfortunately, she and I both were (apparently) very confused six-year-olds. Don't get me wrong, we know all the tricks. We can tell right from left most of the time without thinking about it too hard. It's usually under stress that the confusion really comes out. I can't tell you how many times one of us has been sitting in the passenger seat of a car, motioning frantically to the right and yelling, "Turn left. Turn LEFT!" That would be your other left.

Until my mom read about the studies, we had a theory that it was genetic. My maternal grandfather was even worse with left vs. right than we were. Whatever side grandpa told you something was on, you could pretty safely do exactly the opposite and be correct about 95% of the time. Personally, I blame my confusion on my left-handedness. I went to school back in the days when the state of California could afford to have less than 30 kids to a class (quaint huh?). With such small classes I tended to be the only left-handed kid in class. I remember multiple times in kindergarten and first grade where the teacher would say, "Now on the right side, that's the hand that you write with - oh except you Shelly." Gee thanks. That wasn't confusing.

Anyway, alllllll that background to say, my mom has already started working with Norah on left and right. I thought she was being a little optimistic, but Norah's getting it really quick! In fact yesterday in the bath, I asked for her left arm, right leg, etc. and she got every one right. Of course, I had to ask her daddy to confirm that she'd gotten it right. Fortunately for us, it turns out it's not genetic!