Monday, September 24, 2012

Teaching my daughters to drive (Or earning a few grey hairs)

When our oldest daughter was fifteen and a half Janine and I told her that she needed to talk with her friends and figure out how to get a learner’s permit. She was approaching adulthood and we wanted her to be in charge. She wasn’t very motivated. And we weren’t very motivated. (The idea of spending hundreds of extra dollars for car insurance slowed us down.) The net result was two years slide by and she still hadn’t gotten her learner’s permit.

Our second daughter turns sixteen next month. She is very motivated to get her driver’s license. She talked with her friends and figured out the process. Her sister followed in her wake as she set up appointments last month. Now both of them learning to drive at the same time.

I spent the first couple hours in our church parking lot, one at a time. I had them put the car in low gear so it would naturally go slow.  They drove around and around. After a couple sessions so they worked on backing up, parking and making three point turns. Last week I set up some cones so my second could practice parallel parking.

We were able to schedule a couple hours with a driving school for our second daughter. (Because our oldest is in college she is busy during the morning and we have to wait a couple weeks until the driving school has an open slot.) After the two hours with the driving school it is legal to let our second daughter driving on the road. So far things have gone well. She is cautious and serious about driving.

I have a fairly normal job as a software engineer, so I don’t spend much time with our children as they homeschool. It has been fun, and a bit stressful, to teach my older two how to drive.

6 comments:

Amy Bailes said...

This is a bit funny to me. Our oldest (15) has been driving since she was 10. What a difference living in the country makes. :-)

Jeanette said...

I had a friend describe being in the drivers seat while teaching her son to drive was like "Going over Niagra Falls in a bucket". :)

arjunseo123 said...

Not a probleam give them private driving traning continue they will teach them proparly!

Christy said...

When the time comes...I'll be so thankful for my husband to teach that home school class! :)

jugglingpaynes said...

My husband handled driving lessons as well. It took our oldest months to go above 20. :o)

We finally decided to use the driving school because there were some finer points that we simply couldn't figure out how to explain to her. We also live in a busy area full of impatient people, so it was nice to have that prominent "student driver" sign and the extra brake. Just in case.

Good luck with the lessons!

Peace and Laughter,
Cristina

Henry Cate said...

Amy - yeah. My grandparents had a horse ranch and I was driving tractors at twelve.

Jeanette - I love that line.

Argunseo123 - Both daughters have taken some private training and gotten better.

Christy - Janine is also quite happy to let me spend the hours with our daughters.

Cristina - Both daughters have struggled with going fast. After a couple weeks I took my second daughter out on the freeway on a Saturday morning and we merged on and off several times. She is still a bit stressed but feeling more comfortable. I'll take my oldest daughter soon, probably once soccer season is over.