Being a car owner spells new sets of responsibilities. Being a parent with a car adds another set of road responsibility. Aside from challenging yourself to be good role models by abiding to road rules and traffic signs, you should also be hands-on when the time comes that your kids would want to be taught how to drive.
At some point, your children will be eager to handle the steering wheel and just hit the road. To be prepared with the inevitable, you should make it an effort to add when to teach your kids to drive a road responsibility. Knowing when to teach your kids how to drive will spare them in the statistics of young adults getting into serious accidents.
Figures show that 36% of all road accidents involve young adults aged 15-21 years old. With this, knowing when to teach your children how to drive should also become a deliberate parental responsibility. As such, here are some pointers as to when you should teach your kids how to drive.
1. Always consider legalities. Teach your kid how to drive six months before he/she turns 16. Consider legal implications associated with driving under 16. A good parent knows not to entrust the wheel with his minor kid. More so, it would be very shameful to get a ticket for allowing your child to drive unlicensed. Also think about your insurance policy. You can never tell what could happen on the road.
2. Learning to drive should be gradual. A child could be eager to drive as early as ten years old and you know better not to test him on the actual wheel. At ten or twelve, you can introduce basic car control functions and parts. At 15, you could now employ backseat driving. When you drive with your kid, point out the different road signs and what they mean. Answer their questions regarding driving and spin him around an area with a lot of road signals for him to be familiarized. You can teach him how to turn the steering wheel and run a car next time. Just make sure that you are teaching your kid at a gradual basis.
3. Evaluate the level of responsibility of your child. You know your child more than anybody. His capacity as a driver is subject to how he learns well but his quality as a driver must be evaluated. If he exhibits uncontrolled and reckless speed just for fun, then you should think again. But if you could see that he is diligent and he takes the necessary precautions and road signals seriously then you could relax a bit and trust him with the wheel.
4. As parents, it is always your call. Different parents have different parenting styles. Perhaps, it should also be best if you align when to teach your kids to drive with your parenting patterns. If you’re the protective parent then make sure that you teach them gradually. If you’re more trusting then let them take the wheel on the very first day of driving lessons and put them into trial and error. At the end of the day, the answer to the question when to teach your kids to drive is subjective and it’s all up to you.
There is really no absolute pointers as to when to teach your kids how to drive. The only lingering fact here is that, it is better if kids learn from their parents in terms of how to drive. With this, children will know your reservations, your level of trust on them and your driving ethics. Knowing these will frame the quality of drivers they will become.