What advice would you give a dad who is teaching his son to drive?

WEAR A SEATBELT

Try to avoid the imaginary brake. That’s when your kid does something to stress you out while driving and you stomp where the break would be, but as a passenger, there isn’t one. It really adds to their stress level to see you doing that.

Take ‘em to an empty parking lot to start them out. Maybe something like the elementary school parking lot on the weekend.

Start slow, maybe just with starting easy and stopping easy so that the car isn’t jerky.

Some schools have that drive through area for picking up kids—it’s often one lane which also makes it useful for learning to drive in a lane without being on the road. (I did all my practice driving at my elementary school on the weekend.)

If you can, choose somewhere generally out of view/deserted. If no one else can see, there will be less stress. Once you do get on the road, try and start with low traffic roads.

Also, seriously: Your kid can tell if you are freaking out and it will just freak them out. I did MUCH better learning to drive with my dad, who just relaxed and let me drive wherever and get a feel for it, than my mom who clutched the car door, stomped the imaginary brake, and generally freaked the eff out.

Practice makes perfect. Take your son out to a parking lot at night and let him go at it. Start with simple things and work your way up to parallel parking. I learned how to drive from my dad before I had my license, and it made doing driver’s ed much more easy.

Another valuable test we did was advanced winter car control in the parking lot. I found an area with no concrete pillars nearby but which also had ice and snow on it, and took it at different speeds to feel how the car reacted. Nothing too fast or dangerous though. I can say, it was great to experience the car out of my control and for me to see how I reacted when I knew it wasn’t an actual accident happening. I now have more control over my car in the winter, I can feel when it’s slipping and I know how to compensate correctly. That test event instilled a lot of confidence into me, but not cocky confidence, in fact that situation really made the point loud that a car is a huge killing machine and despite what we think, there will be times that we cannot control it. It is hands down the best hands on advice my dad gave me with regards to cars.

As for advice for the dad – one thing I hated was that my dad “mirror drove”, he would put his foot on the nonexistent passenger side break if he thought I was going too fast. I feel it would have been better for him to tell me with words and not with his body language. My younger sibling also feels the same way, although she’s less of a great driver than I am so my dad is even more stressed when she drives, which just makes her more stressed, etc.

I agree w/ EP….don’t freak out…..

Calm, quiet confidence is what your kid needs. They are highly motivated to suceed. They want to drive the car.

If you are not confident enough to calmly drive on the streets, start in a large parking lot.

Set limits and rules….that you both agree to….failure to follow means revocation of driving privileges for a few days.

Also, when I first starting driving, I was extremely anxious about passing oncoming cars. I insisted tearfully that I was too afraid to do it….my dad insisted that I do it….
So when an oncoming car was coming…I told him I’M GOING TO LET GO OF THE WHEEL. He said, “Nah, ya’ won’t….just keep going….”

Well, I let go of the wheel. Dad grabbed it…so crisis averted.

My point….listen to your kid. If they don’t seem confident in doing something, believe them.

You needn’t worry my fellow jellies….I pass cars just fine now :)

Pay for Driving School lessons. You may even get a discount on your car insurance!

Don’t do it! Send him to a school and you just help him PRACTICE.

I agree with the above. But above all be patient with him.

drivers ed is amazing. and they get school credit for it! but once they pass drivers ed dont let that be the end of it. as a parent or the student, both need to be responsible for how the kid drives on the road. i mean kid gets in an accident, and who pays?? the parent. for repairs and insurance. And let me tell you… they really bone you for insurance.

I’d keep the practice sessions to under an hour or so. The one thing I really hated when learning to drive was doing a maneuver over and over and over. Granted, it’s important to practice, but it’s better to go out several times per week than do one stressful marathon session on the weekend.

Thanks, and keep the advice coming. My son ventured off the parking lot onto a real street for the first time last night. It was a short and uneventful excursion (thank you!) and I did not freak once (that I remember).

The most important advice I can give you is to make him drive everywhere!

I’m serious. Once he can stay in between the lines, he’s in the driver’s seat. My parents didn’t let me drive hardly at all when I had my learner’s permit. When I got my license, I hadn’t had nearly enough practice making judgments, so I was very afraid of unprotected left-hand turns and would wait for 10 minutes at an intersection when now I think I probably had several chances to go, and I got into four accidents in the first two years I was driving. Only one of them was not completely my fault. And I had been to driver’s ed and passed with flying colors.

Xanax

let someone else do it! the emotions and fear run too deep when you involve yourself in this part of your teens life – it’s best not to witness it. Let their friends or older siblings do it instead.

@imhellokitty “let their friends” teach them to drive….?

Um, I don’t know if that it something I would recommend….

For this job, the buck stops here.

There is some rule of thumb about calculating the distance you need to be from the car in front of you, depending on your speed. I don’t recall what it is, but perhaps it’s in the manual. Anyway, you could practice that with him. It would be a good, low-stress way to teach him to not follow too close, without just preaching to “stop following so close”.

@JohnRobert – you’re referring to the “2 second rule”. You look in front of you for a landmark, and when the car in front of you passes it, count zero, one, two. If you pass that landmark before you hit two, you’re following too close. You use seconds because distance is relative….that is, if you’re going 5 mph, you can follow only a few feet away and you’ll be able to have enough time to stop if the car in front of you comes to a sudden halt. But if you are following at 60mph, you need a lot more distance to stop. There is also a “4 second rule” in that you are supposed to double that time if the roads are wet or slippery.

Of course, if you live in a large metro area like I do and have to drive on freeways, good f’ing luck following either rule…if you leave that much space, umpteen cars will try to fill it, then if traffic comes to a stop and you slam into the back of someone, you’re at fault because you’re the one who hit another vehicle.

Thank you for clarifying that. I’ll need to make sure I follow that myself.

Just be calm and confident. My mother freaked out, and I didn’t learn from her. My boyfriend got frustated and yelled at me, and I didn’t learn from him. My father took me out to a state park in the dead of winter to learn on snow and ice covered, curvy one lane roads. He took me in his brand spanking new king cab pick-up truck. To teach me parallel parking, he used a ladder for one end, and his BODY for the other. He never moved a muscle. I learned from him : )

Practice, Practice, Practice. Get a $500 car (preferably a stick shift) and go to town in large parking lots. I suggest a manual transmission because if you can learn to do the clutch and shifting and everything, it makes it that much easier when driving an automatic.