My son just turned 16 and got a learner’s permit. I’m the designated teacher-no way Ms. Plan B is going anywhere near this one.
Any suggestions?
Make sure you take him out in the rain, once he feels comfortable driving in good weather. From what I’ve witnessed, a lot of parents skip this.
Yes, don’t be like my dad!
Ahhh, the good old days.
Calm down.
Even if you think you’re not showing it. The kid notices it and gets even more uptight.
Valium.
No, my best tip is to borrow or rent a manual transmission to practice on, if you don’t have one. My mom insisted I learn stick as I learned to drive, so it all got filed under the same mental skill set. I think it’s important that a person - especially a young person - be able to drive any vehicle that happens to be around, in case of emergency, injury, impairment or poor judgement on the part of the owner. Maybe it’s not such a big deal in today’s world of cell phones, but there were several times when I was young when I took away someone’s keys because they shouldn’t be driving and drove their car home with them in it so they’d be safe. As I’ve gotten older, it’s been nice to always be able to take a turn driving, no matter what the car type.
My husband still refuses to learn stick at 38. I think he wouldn’t be so intimidated if he had learned it at 16. This means when we borrow his brother’s SUV, I’m the only one who can drive it. Not that it’s a big deal for local trips, but when we’re driving 6 or 12 hours away, I really wish he would take a turn.
Before I even got in the car with my father and my new permit, we sat in the parked, turned-off car while my father went, “Go. Go. Go. Stop. Go. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Go.” for a good five minutes while he watched my feet until he was quite sure I’d gotten down which pedal was which without having to think about it or flinch at quick changes.
Make sure to drive at night, in the rain, in traffic, etc. - any awkward driving situation you can think of.
One of the best things my Dad taught me was that the brake is for stopping the car, not slowing it. If you have to use the brake to avoid hitting the car in front of you, you’re not anticipating, you’re not looking far enough ahead.
Teach him snow driving even if you have to drive to the mountains to do it. Few people are aware that ABS brakes don’t really work at all when you go into a skid on ice, snow or sand.
Make him drive a tank; some low mileage giant metal sled. Once he totals that, look for something more stylish. 
Be patient. There is nothing worse that being taught by someone who is annoyed at you or yelling or overly criticizing.
The other thing that helped me was to drive in empty parking lots to get the hang of handling the car (I learned on a manual transmission) and also to just drive a lot. Everytime my dad needed to go somewhere in the evening or weekend he handed me the car keys and had me drive.
And I agree with driving in different conditions: rain, bad light, night, highways, etc.
When my father first taught me how to drive, he insisted on emphasizing things like how to go up a hill without having to shift gears, and how to make sharp turns on an incline.
Don’t do that. He meant well, but he didn’t understand that novice drivers need to grasp the basics before thinking about things like fuel efficiency and minimal gear shifting.
My tip: If you can afford it, pay someone else to teach your kid how to drive.
I had a thread about this several months ago, and we’re *still * trying. It’s frustrating and scary. It’s just awful, in fact.
If you *have * to do it- huge empty parking lots are your friends.
The best advice my parents gave me about driving: Never trust the blinker of an oncoming car (ie when you are pulling out onto a road and the next car on said road is seemingly about to turn onto the road you’re currently on).
I have avoided dozens of accidents by remembering that rule, and nearly gotten into several accidents when ignoring it.
Yeah, I agree that learning to drive a manual is essential. (The trouble seems to be finding a manual to learn on–right now we’re looking for a used car, I’d prefer a manual, but there don’t seem to be any!) In college I was the only one in my house of 5 who could drive the U-Haul truck with the piano in it. Pretty lame IMO.
No gasping in panic every time another car appears on the road, in another lane, 300 yards away. Relax and be patient.
Tape one foot to the gas, tape the other to the brake. Then get him out on the freeway and tickle him.
What?
Personally I wait until they’ve almost compleated that turn. All to often someone slows down, starts in on the turn, then changes their mind and pulls right back out in traffic and nearly normal road speed. If you’re already half pulled out into the road, you better hope they see you.
Similar to the “stop go stop” method and especially for stick shift, get the kid shifting gears while the car is parked and the engine off. Keep him at it until he can shift up and down through all the gears with only two fingers on the gear stick - that way he’s really learning how the gears fit together and won’t get into the habit of forcing the gear stick into place.
My dad made me practice emergency stops till we almost wore through a set of tyres.
Then 3- point turns and parallel parking.
Eventually (weeks / months later?) we left the carpark and went on the road.
And every single time when we got home, mum would measure the sweat stains down the backs of our shirts and declare us equally stressed out.
Valium is not a bad idea.
Mall parking lots are a better one.
Buying a cheap gas guzzling tank is the best.
Don’t allow any music.
And swear on your mother’s soul that if the kid is a situation where everyone is too impair to drive, you will come get them, no blood no foul.
I never had to make good on that promise, so I don’t know what to do if you have to.
Have you lost your mind? Valium, Xanax, with a bourbon chaser and maybe, just maybe I would tackle teaching my 16 year old to drive. Props to you Mr. B.
I also think learning to drive a manual is essential, but I have what seems to be an unpopular opinion in that the first lessons should be in an automatic. The poor kid will have enough to worry about without having to jam gears. If you live in a jurisdiction which doesn’t endorse a licence with “automatic transmission only”, then you are even luckier, and you can do the whole lot in the automatic. Later, when the kid is comfortable on his own on the road, he’s driving smoothly, not looking at the controls, keeping up with traffic etc, then you can introduce the manual transmission. With a smart kid, you can do it in a single morning. Even better if you can let him out on a quiet road or parking lot without you in the car: nothing like having the owner of the car (and by extension, the clutch) growling at you for stalling.
At first, I was just going to post something silly about teaching my kid sister to drive a stick (she already had her license), then I saw this. As soon as I started going out on my own in the evening when I was 13 or 14, Dad told me to call him any time 24 hours a day, if I needed a ride to avoid drunk driving or riding with a drunk driver. (No, I wasn’t drinking at 13, but he knew there was a chance.) I’d been living in my own apartment for 4 years when one night, drunk and 30 miles from home and no cab money, I had to call Dad at about 2 AM on a weeknight (yeah, we both had to work at 7 AM that day). He came and got me and my buddy. When he picked us up, he thanked us for calling him. To the day he died, he never gave me one bit of crap about that episode.
Kudos to 3acresDad. Brilliant story. Thanks.