'Can I Borrow the Car?' How to Partner With Your Teen for Safe Driving

Susan Boone's Tordella

Description

"'Can I borrow the car' How to partner with your teen for safe driving" is an e-book about how parents can influence teenagers to learn safe driving habits written by Susan Tordella, who taught all four teens how to drive automatic and stick shift vehicles. Susan is also the author of "Raising Able: How chores empower families" where she shares wisdom gleaned from a decade of leading parenting workshops and 25 years of raising four successful children by using Adlerian psychology.

The book has two objectives: 1. To share suggestions on how parents can relate positively to their teens so that, 2. Teens will listen to them and follow the safe driving habits and keep them out of accidents.

"Can I borrow the car?" gives specific safety habits your teen can use to avoid accidents that are useful and easy to learn, useful for adults and teenage drivers. Susan uses stories to show how to partner with your teen to insure they drive safely. Her true stories include three accidents caused by her teens and weren't fatal, give Susan credibility. Accidents happen. This short book, full of suggestions on how to relate to your teen positively and avoid alienating him or her, may prevent accidents, show your teenagers that you expect them to drive responsibly, and possibly prevent a fatal accident.

Susan recommends the use of family meetings to set up a mutually respectful relationship for life with your teenager, which may influence him or her to follow the safe driving habits you will teach and model. Modeling the safe driving habits is more powerful than talking about them. Susan encourages parents to talk about teen accidents published in the media to promote awareness and prevent accidents.

Readers will learn how to use encouragement – how to notice what you like to get more of it, instead of being critical, sarcastic or complaining. This short, to-the-point guide on how to encourage teens to learn safe driving habits teaches parents how to take a positive attitude and be a good role model to promote safe driving. Much is at stake with new drivers. The rate of accidents among teenage drivers newly licensed is higher than the rate of any other age group. At the end of the book is a one page Teen Safe Driving Contract, another tool to raise awareness and promote communication with teens that driving has life and death consequences.

Sujets

• Vie de famille
• Parentalité et Éducation des Enfants
• Parentalité
• Parentalité
• Parentalité
• Fitness
• Safety
• Health

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 21 février 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780982697320
• Langue: English

Extrait

“Can I borrow the car?”
How to partner with your teen for safe driving
 
By Susan Tordella


Copyright 2012 Susan Tordella
Published in eBook format by Black Eyed Susan Publications, Ayer, Mass.
www.blackeyedsusanpublicaitons.com
978-772-3930 [e-mail]
Converted by http://www.eBookIt.com
All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced without written permission by the author.
ISBN: 978-0-9826973-2-0
Panic in the passenger seat
One hot June Saturday afternoon a friend hired my sons, then ages 16 and 15, to move her belongings from an apartment to a condo. We showed up at her second floor apartment at 8 a.m. with the mini-men and maxi-van, which Noah and Ian dubbed the “Man Van,” a full-size conversion van.
Noah drove the van with a junior operator’s license. He had been driving only a few months during a time when teens have the highest rate of accidents. Almost half of novice teen drivers have an accident during their first year of driving. I hoped it wouldn’t happen with me in the front seat.
Sweaty and tired from loading the contents of the apartment, I gave Noah directions to the condo in the pre-GPS era. Bumper-to-bumper traffic surrounded us at an unfamiliar intersection. Noah’s driving under these circumstances added more perspiration to my shirt, damp from carrying boxes down two flights of stairs in sweltering 85-degree heat.
“Take a right at the next light,” I said. Noah conscientiously signaled to merge into the right lane to turn in 200 yards.
Note: Whatever you’ve heard about crazy Boston drivers is true. We are impatient, rude, self-centered, in a hurry, and expect other drivers to be the same. Most Bostonians don’t bother to use turn signals.
When Noah signaled to merge into the right lane, I glanced at the oversized mirror on the passenger door to check the blind spot, where a huge new black pickup truck glistened in the sun, hugging our bumper in the right lane.
“Wait, Noah. Let the truck pass,” I said quietly.
After a second of hesitation, Noah didn’t wait. He accelerated and merged into the lane anyway!
I shrieked, closed my eyes, grabbed the armrest, stopped breathing and awaited the jolt of impact, the sickening crunch of metal-on-metal, and grimaced at the image of the $1,000 insurance deductible flying through my hands.
Nothing happened. The van glided forward towards the intersection. I opened my eyes and turned to Noah, who was gripping the steering wheel and struggling to stay calm after my outburst. He had effortlessly merged into the right lane, ahead of the pickup truck, now behind us.
“Mom, he let me in. I saw him in the mirror. He waved me in,” Noah said calmly.
What? The pickup truck driver must have come from somewhere foreign, like Canada.
I exhaled, wiped sweat from my brow, and realized there were two more teens at home that needed to learn to drive. I regained my composure and complimented Noah, “Good use of your mirrors.” We talked about the incident at dinner that night. He chastised me for my response. I’m only human. I was scared. The story went down in our family’s oral history of memorable misunderstandings between parents and teens. It shows how hard it is to let go of control of a car, especially as a passenger and a new driver is in charge of my safety and vehicle. Fear interfered with managing my emotions. It was a close call.
This incident was one of many that spiked my blood pressure, made me sweat and worst of all, reduced the likelihood my teen drivers would heed safe driving habits. You can learn from my mistakes (and successes), also known as experience.
The keys to independence
Teaching teens to drive is like trusting your life to a young operator of a roller coaster who had a five-minute orientation. You reluctantly get into the little seat, grip the armrest, brace for excitement, feeling out of control and fearing for your life. Like all amusement park rides, it takes you from glorious anti-gravity ecstasy to death-defying plunges. Some call it fun.
How do I know this? I taught my four teens to drive – two boys and two girls. I experienced the thrill and the fear – of the ride and my emotions. The hardest part of coaching them to drive was to manage my emotions during the crazy ride.
This guide offers suggestions on how to manage your emotions and your teens, and set up a short set of safety guidelines for teens to learn and follow. The goal is to teach them to drive with good judgment and simultaneously preserve your relationship, vehicle and sanity. It’s not easy. I understand the fear, lack of control, sweat, increased blood pressure, and guilt about loss of temper.
Your teen may be thinking one of the following statements.
“ I know so much more about driving than Mom/Dad.”
“I pretend to listen to Mom/Dad and follow their rules until I get the car alone.”
“I’ll live forever. No need to worry about accidents. I don’t know why Mom/Dad worry so much.”
“I’m a good driver. I don’t have to follow the rules of the road. They’re for other people.”
“I’m scared to drive. I’m not sure I want or need my license, but I’m doing it to please Mom/Dad.”
Whatever they’re thinking, this guide will be useful.
Start with the end in mind
I welcome parents to my workshops by asking them what long-term attributes they want their children to develop. For example, I want my children to develop good judgment, to be resilient and able to live independently. Our goals influence how we approach milestones in maturity (that sounds like an AARP headline). Take a minute and write down a few of your long-term goals for your teens, like “have good social skills,” “finish school,” “good self-esteem,” and “have a good relationship with them.” It’s easy to get lost in the woods and lose the bigger picture.
Ideas in this guide are gleaned from personal experience of teaching four teens to drive and from leading positive parenting skills workshops for more than a decade, based on principles gleaned from Dr. Alfred Adler that are useful for tots-to-teens as well as adults. See my other books and blog www.raisingable.com for regular reminders on developing positive parenting habits. Subscribers and comments are always welcomed.
You have the opportunity to leverage your resources – the car and its insurance, and your driving skill and experience – to provide a safe foundation for your teen’s time behind the wheel for life. No other initiation into adulthood provides as much fun, independence and danger as the driver’s license. This guide will empower you – the parent or guardian -- to partner with teens to become safe drivers, because literally, life and death are at stake, especially for 16-year-olds.
No matter what you teen is thinking and feeling about learning to drive, here are some cold cruel facts that may have motivated you to read this guide.
• Motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of death for 15-to-20-year-olds.
• Drivers who are 16 years old have the highest crash rate of all age groups.
• Drivers who are 16 years old are three times more likely than any other age to die in a motor vehicle crash.
• The riskiest time for fatal accidents is the first six months a teen starts driving, which is why more than 45 states have enacted graduated drivers licenses since the 1990s. (Source: Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association.)
Your fears are grounded in statistical reality. Your quest is to:
• provide safe driving skills and coaching;
• instill fear and restraint in an over-confident new driver; and/or
• nurture the confidence of a timid driver.
You can do it, and in the process have fun and strengthen your parent-teen connection, which is the foundation of your relationship, and the platform from which they learn good judgment.
Parents must be proactive because, as you saw in the statistics above, the riskiest time for new drivers starts with the permit and continues for the next six to 12 months. Parents cannot afford the risk of taking Meg or Matt to get the driver’s license and then blithely hand over the keys to a vehicle with no further coaching. All 50 states have recognized this and implemented graduated drivers licensing. I recommend that you go beyond the state requirements. Take advantage of the first 12 months a new driver is on the road to supervise, train and encourage safe driving habits when teens are most at risk.
What’s in this guide
Below are a few anti-accident habits you and your teen can start adopting through practice. That’s how we absorb new habits – by:
1. Recognizing the need to change;
2. Refraining from the old way of doing things;
3. Reminding ourselves to implement the new habit through practice;
4. Reinforcing the change; and
5. Reflecting on the vast improvement.
This takes time, awareness and commitment. You will adopt the new habits if you gain the support of a group over a period of three weeks (the minimum) to 12 weeks (success highly likely). That’s the only way I’ve ever changed.
Teaching a teen how to drive depends on how you approach the relationship with your teen driver, along with expectations, trust, communication style, respect and connection. Despite the reputation of teenagers, you can use concepts in this book to nurture a close relationship that will ultimately keep your teen safer on the road and making better decisions in life.
Basic Safety Habits
Here is a summary of the basic safety habits to instill in your teens, and communication tips to preserve your relationship.
I. Communicate clearly and respectfully. Lay out expectations about safe driving habits you expect them to learn and use for life. Use the safe drivers contract (see appendix and at www.raisingable.com ) as a guide. Be prepared to enforce agreements in the contract in a kind, firm, friendly and consistent manner. When and if agreements are broken, you will have agreed upon consequences in advance, agreements whi