How To Teach Your Newly Licensed Child To Drive

Dec 10, 2015

How To Teach Your Newly Licensed Child To Drive It may seem hard to believe that you now have a teen driver in your house. Unfortunately, the leading cause of death for teenagers in the United States is car accidents. This is why it’s so important for parents to be actively involved in teaching their newly licensed child to drive.

Have a Plan Before Each Lesson

Before each training lesson, make a plan for the route you want to take and the skills you want to practice. For the first few lessons, keep to large, empty parking lots and quiet side streets. Save busy intersections and interstate driving until your teen has plenty of practice behind the wheel.

While You’re Giving the Lesson

During the driving lesson, make sure you give your teen plenty of advance warning of where you want him or her to turn and what you want him or her to do. Remember to keep your voice calm so your teen doesn’t get anxious or upset. If your teen makes a mistake, have him or her pull over and explain the mistake.

For the first few lessons, keep the driving time to only 15 or 20 minutes. As your teen gains more confidence, you can increase the lessons to 30 or 40 minutes. Your teen doesn’t have good scanning techniques down yet, so make sure you’re looking down the road for any potential dangers.

Review High Risk Conditions

Teen drivers face the highest risk of crashes on weekend nights. Therefore, it’s important to spend extra time practicing night driving in different conditions. Also, teen males involved in collisions were usually speeding, so it’s important to talk about maintaining a safe speed while driving. As well, point out the need to wear a seatbelt every time your teen is in the car. Even a sudden stop at 30 miles per hour is like falling to the ground from a three-story building.

Set Clear Expectations

Once your teen starts driving, it’s important that you set clear rules and expectations. This can include no cell phone use and no other teens in the car. If your teen breaks these rules, take away the keys and remind him or her that driving is a privilege to earn.

Find a Driving School

If you live in an area where driver education has been eliminated due to budget cuts, you might be interested in finding a driving school to help your teen learn how to drive. To find a good program, ask your friends, neighbors, and even your insurance company if they have any recommendations. Once you have a few options, call them to find out if they offer in-car lessons and how much practice time they offer. The more practice time your teen gets behind the wheel, the more experience they will gain.

Keep in mind that the best lessons start before your teen gets behind the wheel for the first time. Model good driving practices and obey all traffic laws when you’re driving. Being a good role model is the best way to teach your teen how to drive.

Image from Pixabay licensed under CC BY 2.0