Parent to Parent

Beginning of a new school year often means the beginning of Driver's Ed for a whole new crop of teen drivers. Also, it is the beginning of a whole new crop of gray hair for the parents and relatives of these same teen drivers. If you think the best you can do is to send them off into the capable hands of your local Driver's Ed instructor, think again. Here's yet another example of parents being the first, if not always the best, teacher.

Like it or not, your teens have been learning to drive ever since you turned their car seat around to face forward. Even very young toddlers figure out that red means stop, green means go, and yellow means go faster. Oops! Did I teach him that? Exactly my point. They're watching and learning from your driving habits: the good, the bad and the ugly.

And old habits are hard to break, even when learning the correct way. I remember a teen from my own Driver's Ed days who had just that problem. Whenever he approached the crest of a hill, instead of easing up on the gas as instructed, he'd speed up just a little. That is just what his mom had always done, to give the kids a little bump over the top, add a bit of fun to the ride. Only now, years later, he was being forced to unlearn that habit in order to pass the test to get his license.

While the two-year-old who reminds you to stop at the drive-thru on your daily morning commute is cute, the five-year-old who announces "I like it when Daddy speeds around all the slow cars" is not as much. As they get older, most of them tend to keep quiet about your little driving indiscretions (cutting through a parking lot to avoid a red light, cutting off truck drivers who are too slow …etc,) but they are still watching and learning.

So while it's true that inexperienced teen drivers are involved in more car crashes than the rest of us, there are plenty of ways to insure their safety.

Once you've improved your own driving skills to perfection, you're ready to start instructing your child, whatever their age. Instead of cursing out all the bad drivers (the rest of us who share your road, that is) try using others' mistakes as teachable moments. I'm quite fond of shouting, "See that? Don't ever do that!" as if my sons are about to take the wheel tomorrow, when their driving days are actually still years away. And I know they are paying attention because they don't hesitate to point out my mistakes, either.

Crashproof Your Kids gives you specific exercises to go through with your driving teen that will reinforce any classroom Driver's Ed experience. Go through them very carefully. Don't let them go for the Big Test until they have completed and passed your test. Getting a driver's license should never be rushed, as it's a great responsibility where even a tiny mistake can have deadly consequences. Not only do you owe it to your kids, but also to the friends who will be riding with them, and the rest of us who will be sharing the roads with them.

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