BIRMINGHAM TEEN: Teaching Your Teen Safe Driving

Teaching Your Teen Safe Driving: TIPS FOR PARENTS

By Tanni Haas, Ph.D

Parents often like to supplement their teen’s official driving lessons with their own lessons behind the wheel, and that’s a great idea. Studies show that teens who receive additional driving instruction from their parents have fewer accidents than teens who don’t get any extra help. What can parents do to ensure that their teens get the most out of their time together in the car? Here’s what the experts say:

Let them take the lead. Once you’ve told your teens that you’re willing to give them driving lessons, back off a bit and don’t push the issue. “If your teen isn’t driving you crazy about teaching her to drive,” says Carleton Kendrick, a family therapist who works with teens, “she’s probably too nervous to begin the process.” Wait patiently until they’re ready for your help. As Wayne Parker, a certified life coach and author of Power Dads, puts it, “an overly anxious teen driver can be a dangerous thing.”

Give them advance warning. Talk with them about the first lesson – where you’re going and what you’re going to do. Teens don’t like surprises, especially from their parents. Plan the route and the skills you’ll be working. It’ll put you on a more equal footing.

Treat them like adults. That includes when they’re learning how to drive. Kendrick says that parents should avoid talking down to their teens, making any negative comments, or treating them like little children. She suggests that parents “praise specific progress and improvement, while offering non-judgmental, optimistic, and encouraging words.” The goal is to make your teens more aware drivers, not to make them feel shamed or judged. Another way to guide your teens is to ask them questions instead of giving commands. Instead of saying slow down or “you’re going to get a speeding ticket,” Parker suggests asking “what’s the speed limit here?” Studies show that teens whose parents ask questions rather than make critical statements get into fewer accidents. Put yourself in their shoes. Studies also show that many parents focus their instruction more on skills that they had difficulty mastering when they themselves learned how to drive than on the skills that best prevent teen accidents. Instead of spending much of your time teaching your teens how to parallel park (a maneuver that can make many parents break into a sweat), focus on skills like how to safely merge on and off highways, which is in fact a major source of teen accidents.

Be a good role model. All kids, including teens, learn more from what they watch their parents do than from anything parents tell them. Be a good role model and drive safely when you’re in the driver’s seat and your teens are the passengers. Jen Stockburger, director of operations at Consumer Reports’ Auto Test Center, puts it well: “The example you set for them behind the wheel may be the most important in terms of actually keeping them safe, more so than any other safety message you’ve given them in their entire life.”

Tanni Haas, Ph.D. is a professor in the Department of Communication Arts, Sciences & Disorders at the City University of New York – Brooklyn College.