Take The Stress Out Of Teaching Your Kids To Drive - s post

For the vast majority of people in the U.S., driving is a major component of their day. A commute to work or school, running various errands, making trips for fun, chances are that you’re not getting any of these done without going behind the wheel. This, combined with the sense of independence, makes learning to drive an important rite of passage for teens of all kinds, and a moment many parents are dreading. Whether your teen is overzealous or overcautious about their time to drive, here are a few things you can do to lower the stress level for both you and your child.

Setting The Stage

For starters, not everyone is ready to start at the same time. Don’t try to force the issue of driving if your teen feels they aren’t ready, as someone anxious behind the wheel can be dangerous. At the same time, though, time waits for no one, so you want to try and get your teen ready. Depending on their temperament, it may make more sense just to start slow, but to start nonetheless.

To try and minimize this stress, make sure that you do a little pre-planning about the area you are going to do a practice drive in. Depending on their confidence, you may not want to go to a busy area right away, but you will want to do different types of areas to raise that confidence and also get them valuable experience in different driving situations they will encounter on their own. Another thing to do during the process is to start leading by example. Many teens, as they ramp up to drive, take a closer look at how you drive. Risky or reckless behavior is not the type of things you want them to pick up, much like anything else, really.

Tips For Teaching

Now, what about when you are actually on the road? For one thing, communication definitely matters. A recent study profiled 217 pairs of parents and teens, who used a driving program to help them teach. According to the study, the most common utterance from parents was “You need to slow down,” and 1 in 5 comments about driving were critical. This was often met with defensive behavior from the teens—the type of back and forth that can sink a good lesson.

One good alternative that was found was to replace criticism with open-ended questions. For example, if your teen accidentally rolls through a stop sign, ask them something like “Tell me about how you handled the intersection back there.” Next, listen to the answer, and say, “So you did sort of a rolling stop?” At this point, you need to give an explanation why not doing a  proper stop is bad at that point. Science showed that this method was linked to a 21% decrease in risky behavior in teen drivers.

Every actual teacher needs a lesson plan to lay out to themselves and administration exactly how they are going to hit all the major points they need to in order to give their students the necessary knowledge they need. This may not be a bad idea for driving training as well. This doesn’t have to be formal, but it can give you an idea of what topics you have already covered and things that you may have missed. Organizing them in a certain order can make sure you save some of the more difficult concepts for later, when your teen is more confident.

Important topics to keep in mind for your plan include:

·       How to fuel up and check fluids

·       Adjusting your mirrors/seats

·       Shifting gears

·       How to back up properly

·       Signaling to other drivers

·       Tuning out distractions

·       Handling intersections

·       Making lane changes

·       Parking (angle, parallel, 90 degree)

This is only a sampling, but it gives you an idea of the volume of topics you have to cover.

Another thing that you should discuss (but maybe not while you’re behind the wheel) is what to do when an accident does occur. There is an average of 6 million accidents in this country each year, and while not all of them end with people injured while driving, you still want to be prepared. This means telling your child to remain calm, get the necessary insurance information, and have a way to contact you so they can be aware of what happens.

Learning to drive is an exciting time for any teen, so you want to do what you can to make it a smooth transition.