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Health & Fitness

Why Teaching Your Own Teen to Drive Is Not the Best Choice

If you've been driving since you were at or just older than the legal age, you probably are a pretty good driver.

 

If you’ve been driving since you were at or just older than the legal age, you probably are a pretty good driver. Those years behind the wheel make a real difference and, in most situations, you probably react to danger in a way that reduces the chances of injuries or deaths from a collision. Those skills take decades to refine and learn on your own. That is, in part, why it’s not all that effective for teenagers to learn to drive from their parents.

 

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Knowing and Teaching, There is a Difference

There is a difference between knowing how to drive very well and having the ability to teach driving skills to a novice. Teaching is difficult and a very specialized profession. I’ve been teaching driving skills since 1984 and my father started teaching it in 1962. In the same way that decades of driving build skills in experienced drivers, decades of teaching offer experiential education in how to convey what novice drivers need to know about being behind the wheel.

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There is a dynamic between parents and teen that also makes it very challenging for parents to teach their children how to drive. Teenagers tend to go between wanting to make their parents happy and wanting to establish their own identities. This struggle is sometimes comic, sometimes frustrating but, no matter what shape it takes at the time, it has no place behind the wheel. It makes it impossible for a parent to actually teach a teen the skills that they need to get behind the wheel and handle a car safely.

 

Attention

My instructors have an ability to command the attention of teenagers in ways that parents do not. Because there is no other dynamic other than the one that exists between teacher and student, it’s easier for the teen to focus their attention on driving. A driving instructor can also relate all of the skills that the teen learns to part of the RMV test and to real-life situations, which are great ways to make sure that the skills stick with the teen.

One other thing to keep in mind is that every child knows that their parents tend to have a bit of pride in their children. It’s hard to know when your parents are congratulating you for actually accomplishes something or when they’re just trying to encourage you. Driving instructors encourage students to have confidence in themselves, but their real goal is simply to teach their students how to drive safely. A teenager who gets praise from a good driving instructor can have confidence that they earned that prize and that they’re doing well.

Teaching your own teenager to drive is an uphill battle and one that may result in the teen not having the skills they need to pass the RMV test, much less to stay safe on the roads. Our school can boast a 96%+, (including competency road tests & road tests taken at the RMV branch in addition to our Saturday road tests) success rate for students taking the RMV exam, showing how effective skilled driving instructors can be. 

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