@My3Kiddos - whatever the other issues are, if any of them qualify as a documented disability, perhaps he can get a small tabletop to pull up to a seat in the front row as an accommodation for the documented disability. For example, if he has anxiety, and having to write at a righty desk causes him anxiety, he can ask for a pull up/foldable surface to have in the front row seat (or a seat on an aisle) to reduce his anxiety.
No one here new that he had any issues other than being a lefty since you hadn’t shared that. So not seeing that, with the limited info, the “put on your big buy pants” type comments were out of line. We lefties have learned to survive in a right handed world (except for the angled butter knives- they make me nuts!)
I am a leftie. The idea that my left-handedness is a disability is laughable, in my opinion. Inconvenient perhaps on rare occasions, but certainly not a disability worthy of accommodations. If you had a child who truly needed accommodations, you would understand. Sorry if this sounds harsh, but requesting accommodations for left-handedness when there are thousands of students with true disabilities minimizes real needs.
@My3Kiddos – no one is minimizing issues we don’t know about. It sounds like what is necessary is to focus on them, not on the surface level one that might be used as a mask. All readers can know is that you want to consider left-handedness as a disability on level with those documented sorts that do get accommodations. I have full sympathy for those, and for whatever your son might be dealing with. it does not sound like being a leftie is the issue here (again–leftie myself, married to one, mom to one.)
I asked on a forum for the school DS19 will be attending and was told that the left most seats in every row are left handed desks. The only issue will be getting there early enough to snag one.
I just re-read all the posts, and no one insinuated being a leftie was any kind of disability.
S17 is the only lefty in our nuclear family of 7, though I am a bit ambidextrous, but primarily righty. In his drafting classes, he went to the profs and asked to be placed in an appropriate place for a lefty to work and they adjusted a workspace for him. When he was little, he had lefty scissors, etc., but as an adult he adapts. Lefthandedness is much less of a disability to him that his dyslexia, dyscalculia and dysgraphia, plus his poor vision.
Good luck to your son, OP.
2 of my 3 kids are lefties. One is in college currently and believe me, he feels your son’s pain lol. He’s got dysgraphia to boot. He has found his university way more friendly to left-handers than middle and high school. For starters, not as much writing in -class outside some light note-taking. Most of his classes required papers sent-in digitally as opposed to in-class exams. The rooms typically used for exams always had some leftie options… this year at least. He’s had no need to ask for accommodations and probably wouldn’t just because he’s just learned to adapt but hopefully your son finds college similarly easy in that regard.
I don’t think anyone here was saying being a leftie is disability, because it’s not. My niece is left-handed and so is my sister in law, and as far as I know neither of them has needed any sort of special accommodations…
I am a leftie and probably met my wife because she is a leftie. Back in freshman year in Philosophy class the prof was seating us alphabetical order for some reason but he noticed that there was a lefty desk up front and asked if anyone wanted it. My eventually wife took it. I took notice. We were later assigned study groups together. I used her being a leftie as a way to strike up a conversation.(I know smooth right) And as they say the rest is history. We had two daughters that are both leftie.
I will say some classrooms sucked for us folks. But we dealt with it all our lives so we are used to it. I am hoping being a leftie will help D23 when she starts tennis for HS in 1.5 months.
Lefty married to a lefty here. When I was in college several decades ago, I would get to the lecture hall early when exams were given as they only lefty desks were on the end. The worse thing is, people would sit there so they could get out easily. In grad school I had the first Apple laptop. It costs about 6K and people stared at me. Mainly I used it so my arm wouldn’t ache after writing at an odd angle. ( I got it free from work as Apple was trying to get into the laptop market). Throughout school, there were never any/enough lefty desks. I learned to write by moving the paper sideways. Funny thing is, there were always more lefties than statistically normal in my program at college.
Kids are not lefties but have better ambidextrous traits than they should. I thought the youngest was going to be lefty but isn’t. It helps a lot in sports to be a lefty/ambi. They never know you are coming.
My spouse and I have lefty pie servers. We sometimes give them to our guests just to see their faces. For the rest, we tend to place things in different spots than a righty would. We hate to sit next to righties at dinner ( so pushy). Nothing worse than knocking elbows while dining.
@My3Kiddos well how would anyone here know that??