I wish I could say that every time I get in the passenger seat of the car to let my son practice driving, I experience nothing but pride in him and enjoying his development. But that’s not all I feel. There is also some anxiety and even a little sadness. I think it probably symbolizes for me the growing lack of control I have over my son’s life with each day that passes. This isn’t a bad thing. It just is.
Defining the Problem
Here is the situation: someone whose brain has not yet finished developing, especially in judgment and impulse control, is operating a huge metal machine that can go really fast. Is this really a good idea?
Driving certainly puts your kid at risk of accident and injury, and she is automatically much more autonomous from you when she is driving. But at the same time, driving helps her continue developing her relationships with the outside world. Driving also gives her more choices and the opportunity to be responsible for those choices. If your teen is driving, you have to do less chauffeuring — and you have a very powerful privilege that she can lose at any time. So if your adolescent isn’t driving responsibly, remove the privilege until she does.
For most parents, the driving problems they need help handling aren’t about misbehaviors, such as speeding, accidents, and recklessness. Parents know how to address those concerns: take the keys, have the teen pay for her mistakes, and allow the police and courts to do what they do. More commonly, parents want an approach to the whole matter of driving. They want some guidelines answering three questions:
| 1. | When should I let my teen get a driver’s license? |
| 2. | How much should I let my teen drive? |
| 3. | Should I buy a car for my teen? |
Handling the Problem
Here are some guidelines that can help you determine the best answers to these questions.
Require your teen to meet the basic requirements of life before getting a driver’s license. Though most adolescents assume that they can get a license on their sixteenth birthday, you don’t need to assume that. Licensure is a privilege, not a right. Just because a person has reached the legal age doesn’t mean that she is mature enough to drive responsibly. You don’t want a 140-pound four-year-old on the road.
So if your teen hasn’t gotten her license yet, have the talk. Say, “I would like for you to take driver’s education and get licensed at sixteen. But that depends on you. If you cannot choose to be responsible in other areas that we have discussed, I don’t think you can be responsible in driving either. So I am requiring some things from you.”
Then three months before your teen is eligible for driver’s ed, establish a minimum time period of expected behavior. Set some reasonable expectations that have to be met. For example, require that your teen achieve a certain minimum grade point average and that she have no major behavioral violations, such as alcohol or lying, during the three-month period. If your teen blows it, the clock starts over, and she has to have a clean record for another period of time before being eligible again.
This is not about being punitive. This is the only time in your teen’s life that you will have this particular leverage. She needs to know that it is a big deal and that your boundaries have meaning and substance.
Establish age-appropriate parameters. Don’t allow your teen to drive anywhere at any time she feels like it. That will happen soon enough. It is a better idea to establish parameters that are age-appropriate and that you can gradually extend as your teen matures. For example:
Require your teen to meet certain reasonable requirements. Make sure she knows what your requirements are. For example, tell her she can drive as long as her attitude, conduct, and grades are acceptable. Also tell her she can lose the privilege anytime she crosses the line in these areas. But don’t make perfection the requirement, or you risk discouraging and alienating her.
Require your teen not to have any driving problems, such as speeding, recklessness, or accidents. These are simply cause for losing the privilege of driving. If your teen loses her driving privileges, help her with whatever attitude is causing her to have driving problems. Inexperience? Poor judgment? Impatience? Does she feel omnipotent instead of careful? When she is upset, does she drive differently? Hold to the consequence and also help your teen resolve any attitude issues.
Require your teen to ask permission. Certainly in the early stages of driving, your teen needs to check with you before taking the car. This reminds her that the car is not an extension of herself, and it also allows you time to consider whether to grant permission. Take into account your teen’s emotional state (she shouldn’t drive if she’s angry or upset, for instance); whether she’s fulfilled her household responsibilities (are there tasks you want her to do?), and where she wants to go (a teen can go a lot farther away with a car than with a skateboard).
Require your teen to run errands. Your teen now has an extended capacity to do family chores. Use it! Send her to the store with a list of groceries to buy; have her pick up the clothes at the cleaners or get the takeout you ordered for dinner. She is learning to do things that she will have to do in a few short years on her own. In addition, she needs to understand that the family is a team and that greater privileges also mean greater responsibility.
Before you decide to buy another car, decide if it will meet a need. Are you considering purchasing another car to help out the family, or is it just to make your teen happy? The advantage of another car is that you don’t have to share yours with your teen. But if your family doesn’t do much driving, you may not need to buy another car.
Rather than buying your teen a car, consider getting another family car. If another car would meet a need, you might want to get another family car rather than buying your teen a car. There is a psychological difference between losing the family’s car and losing “your” car. Should you need to take away your teen’s driving privileges for a time, she will likely put up less resistance if the car she’s been driving is yours and not hers.
Require your teen to pay some of the expense of the car. If you opt to buy your teen a car, then also have her pay for part of it with any money she has been earning. Give her a sense of the gravity of auto ownership.
And even if the car isn’t the teen’s, she is still the primary driver and can take some responsibility for the car itself. Require her to help pay a certain amount in order to help meet the expenses incurred for fuel, registration, insurance, and maintenance. Come up with a formula that is realistic for your teen, given his school responsibilities. If she has time to work, she probably should help pay for the car’s expenses, as this will help her make the connection between a car and its expense.
You Can Do It!
Driving signifies that your teen is literally leaving you, for greater and greater distances and times, until the time comes when your teen will leave home for good. Help your teen prepare for that day by requiring her to be as responsible as she is free.