Questions To Determine If Your Child Is Ready To Drive
No doubt your teenager is excited at the prospect of driving. Many teenagers look forward to the day when they can take a drivers ed course and learn how to operate a car. Driving a car brings freedom, but it also comes with a lot of responsibility. This is why it is very important that parents look at more than just a child's age to tell them if they are ready to drive. There must be some other signs that the individual is responsible enough to operate a car. Here are some things you should be looking for.
1. Does Your Child Respect Authority?
One of the first things you should be looking for is if your child respects authority. Too many teenagers are disrespectful and don't think that the rules apply to them. The concern with driving is that if they don't follow the rules it doesn't just hurt them, it hurts other too. They endanger everyone on the road when they don't follow the laws.
Additionally, those enforcing the law deserve respect. If your teenager is unable to give respect to people in authority, or if they purposefully disobey the laws, then they aren't ready to drive yet.
2. Is Your Child Very Susceptible To Peer Pressure?
There are some teenagers who are respectful to authority for the most part, but when it comes to the approval of their peers, it trumps it all. In this situation your child may be extra sensitive to what others think of them, and are willing to do anything to fit in. This can be dangerous when driving, especially if friends or other teenagers are in the car. They may make poor decisions about driving just to impress their friends.
In this case, you should put of getting a license, or at the very least, have a rule that they can't drive with friends in the car.
3. Does Your Teenager Follow Simple Rules?
Lastly, you should be looking for if your child can follow simple rules. These are rules such as curfew, house rules, and the rules at school. If they are constantly defiant, or even unable to follow the rules because they are scattered brained, they might not be ready to drive yet. Showing that they can follow simple rules around the house, will show you that they can follow important rules of the road.
By looking at these questions you can determine if your teenager is ready to drive. Contact a school, like All American Auto Driving School, for more help.