Left Brain vs Right Brain: How to Develop Both in Your Child

You have almost certainly seen the claim: left-brained children are logical and analytical, right-brained children are creative and artistic, and the goal of good education is to "balance" the two.

It is one of the most widely repeated ideas in parenting — and as a description of how brains work, it is largely a myth.

But there is something genuinely useful buried underneath it, and it is worth separating the two. Here is what neuroscience actually shows, why the myth persists, and what a parent can do that is genuinely valuable for a child's thinking.

What the science actually says

The myth

That individuals have a dominant hemisphere which shapes their personality — logical "left-brained" people versus creative "right-brained" people.

Large brain-imaging studies have looked for this directly. Researchers examined connectivity patterns across the brains of over a thousand people and found no evidence that individuals have a stronger left-brain or right-brain network overall. People simply do not sort into these two types. You can read a summary of the lateralization of brain function research for the detail.

What is actually true

Some functions are lateralised — that part is real:

• Language processing is more left-lateralised in most people.
• Spatial attention and some aspects of face processing lean right.
• Fine motor control of each hand is governed by the opposite hemisphere.

But — and this is the key point — almost every meaningful task uses both hemispheres, connected constantly through the corpus callosum.

Doing arithmetic is not a "left-brain" activity. It involves language regions for number words, visual-spatial regions for magnitude, and frontal regions for strategy. Creating art is not "right-brain": it uses planning, sequencing and evaluation from regions across both sides.

There is no such thing as a left-brained child.

Why the myth persists

Three reasons, and it is worth knowing them.

It came from a real but narrow finding. Split-brain research in the 1960s studied patients whose hemispheres had been surgically separated to treat severe epilepsy. In those very unusual cases, striking hemisphere differences appeared. Popular writing then over-generalised this to healthy brains, where the hemispheres are fully connected.

It is a satisfying story. Two types, easy labels, instant explanation of why your child likes drawing more than sums.

It sells things. "Whole-brain development" is an effective marketing phrase, including in our own industry. We would rather not use it dishonestly.

Why the myth is worth discarding

This is not merely an academic correction. The labels do harm in two concrete ways.

They become excuses. "She's right-brained, she's not a maths person" quietly tells a child that struggling with numbers is fixed and permanent. It is not. Children who believe ability is fixed stop trying, which then produces the very outcome the label predicted.

They narrow what a child is offered. A child labelled "creative" gets fewer numerical challenges. A child labelled "logical" gets nudged away from music and art. Both end up with less than they could have had.

The useful idea underneath

Here is what the myth was clumsily pointing at, and it is worth keeping:

Children benefit from a genuine variety of cognitive challenges — verbal, spatial, numerical, creative and physical — rather than a narrow diet of one.

That is true and well supported. It just has nothing to do with hemispheres.

Different activities exercise different networks, and a child who only ever does worksheets is under-training spatial reasoning, while a child who only ever draws is under-training sequential logic. Variety matters. Hemispheres do not.

What to actually give your child

Instead of thinking left versus right, think in terms of these five capabilities. Aim to touch most of them across a week.

A child getting regular exposure to all five is well served. Whether any of it is "left" or "right" is irrelevant.

Why abacus fits unusually well here

We should be careful not to oversell, but there is a genuine reason mental abacus is a useful addition to this mix: it is one of the few activities that is simultaneously numerical, visual-spatial, and attention-demanding.

When a child calculates with a mental abacus, they are:

• Manipulating a visual image (spatial)
• Performing arithmetic (numerical)
• Holding the image steady under load (working memory and attention)
• Executing precise finger movements in the early stages (motor)

Brain-imaging work with trained abacus users supports this — they show activity in visual-spatial regions during arithmetic, rather than the verbal regions most people use. In that specific and limited sense, the training does engage the brain more broadly than conventional arithmetic drill.

That is a defensible claim. "Abacus balances your child's two hemispheres" is not, and we will not make it.

A practical weekly balance

You do not need a chart on the fridge. A reasonable week for a primary-school child might include:

• Daily — 15 minutes reading, 10–15 minutes mental maths practice
• 3–4 times a week — physical play or sport
• 2–3 times a week — something spatial: cube, Lego, puzzles, drawing
• Weekly — something creative and open-ended with no correct answer
• Weekly — a family board or card game

That covers all five capabilities without a single specialist purchase. Our 10 brain-boosting maths games list works for the numerical and spatial slots.

How to talk to your child about ability

Small changes in language matter more than any activity choice.

The theme is the same throughout: describe ability as something that grows, because for children it demonstrably does.

Frequently asked questions

So there is no such thing as a right-brained child? Correct. Children have genuine preferences and strengths, but these do not map onto hemispheres.

Are "whole-brain development" programmes a scam? Not necessarily — many teach genuinely useful skills. Judge them on what the child actually learns, not on the neuroscience language in the brochure.

My child is clearly artistic and hates maths. What do I do? Treat it as a skills gap and a confidence gap, not a brain type. Approach numbers visually — abacus, games, puzzles. See how to make maths fun for kids who hate numbers.

Does learning an instrument help maths? There are modest associations, likely through attention, working memory and pattern recognition rather than anything hemisphere-related. It is worth doing regardless.

What age matters most for this variety? The primary years, roughly 5–12, when children are most open to trying new things and habits form easily.

Give your child the full range

Forget hemispheres. Focus on giving your child a genuinely varied set of challenges, and on never letting a label decide what they are capable of.

Our abacus, Vedic Maths and Rubik's Cube programmes each work a different combination of these capabilities.

Book a free demo class and we will tell you honestly which one suits your child right now.