DD not interested in learning to drive

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD is a sophomore and age 16.5. She has taken the driving class (I forced it last summer when she had more time) but now is not interested in learning to drive. She is so busy with school and activities that I don't feel like forcing it. At what point do you force it? Or, do you not and let them decide when it is time?

Mine was excited to drive but also understood she did not have a choice. It's a life skill AND if she could drive herself to school/local practices, she was going to do so. We did her practice driving during her temp license time to/from practices, tourneys, etc.

Of course we still drove her places but getting her license was non-negotiable.

[Anonymous]

It’s true that some countries wait until 18, brains are more developed, etc. But by the time my kid turns 18, he’ll be leaving for college in a month.

I wasn’t very interested in driving, so my parents didn’t push me. I drove very little & failed my driver's test the first time. My own kid wasn’t eager, but didn’t resist either. He’s had his learner’s permit for almost a year and is finally sounding eager to be able to drive places on his own soon. But he’s still a bit nervous driving on the interstate. Just start with parking lots, then neighborhood streets, then get the kid to where they can drive places you’d take them anyway. It took us a while to build up to that, but you want to give them experience driving the places they’ll be going anyway.

[Anonymous]

I think the criticism with this generation's disinterest in driving is justified, but if OP's kid is too busy, that's a different thing.

My kid is not old enough, but almost there, and she's really, absurdly busy. I can imagine her being even busier next year and saying, yeah we gotta put this off, there's no way I can pull focus from other things rn.

I agree it's an important life skill and it should be taught sooner than later, but waiting a few months (summer?) to me is no big deal and even appropriate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the criticism with this generation's disinterest in driving is justified, but if OP's kid is too busy, that's a different thing.

My kid is not old enough, but almost there, and she's really, absurdly busy. I can imagine her being even busier next year and saying, yeah we gotta put this off, there's no way I can pull focus from other things rn.

I agree it's an important life skill and it should be taught sooner than later, but waiting a few months (summer?) to me is no big deal and even appropriate.

40% of US 18 year olds don't have a driver's license. It's really not unusual these days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had two resistant kids because it simply didn’t feel necessary to their life today. One got a full license at 17.5. We told our other she must have a license before she leaves for college this fall because it isn’t going to be easier to get it later.

I used this same argument with my reluctant teen— if you don’t get your license before college, it isn’t going to be easy to do later. I think this was the trick b/c she finally asked to go get her permit.

[Anonymous]

I think it might be hard for parents of high school age teens to fully understand how limited your time with kids will be once they are in college--not only is there much less time, it is not spread evenly throughout the year. So the best chance your child has for the (imo necessary) daily or at least very very regular driving practice is when they are in high school, living with you.

In our state, the classroom portion is followed by 9(?) hours of private instruction. I think that's a good way to start. Then evaluate if your kid wants to continue further with the private instructor or if they are ok transitioning to driving with parents. Make a goal--every 10 hours they can drive to a fun destination, or they can have a few chances to "learn" the important skill of going through various fast food drive-thrus. I bet the anxiety will go down a lot when she starts and realizes that it's going to be ok as long as she gives the skill a chance to develop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is like this too. Anxious and not interested. I don’t care, she has to learn to drive. It’s a non-negotiable skill she needs in life beyond high school.

I have an aunt who, likely, is ASD but my grandparents surely didn’t know that raising her in the 60s and 70s. They coddled and pacified her and never made her do anything uncomfortable. She moved back in with them in 1995 when her roommates all married and then she never left. My grandmother went kid to an assisted living community last year and it sent my aunt into a literal mental tailspin. My grandmother has never been better but my aunt CANNOT cope with any aspect of adult life on her own . Intellectually she can, she holds a job, has tons of money saved, drives etc but she has spent her whole life never pushing herself through any discomfort and now she’s absolutely drowning. Can’t cook, but won’t learn. Believes she’s broke (living in a fully paid off house) because she has to pay utilities now. She’s scared of everything- driving to a city, public parking, trying new food. I think of her often when making choices for my kids, how sometimes never pushing them to do necessary but hard things is unintentionally cruel and sets them up for difficulties later on that they simply become too mentally rigid to manage.

I have an ASD young adult. Perhaps walk a mile in their shoes before becoming so...awful.

[Anonymous]

My kids were both excited to learn to drive, but many of their friends were not. Older DC has a couple of friends who are now in their first year of college and still don't have a license. I don't know what their plan is.

But one thing that has come up - while I agree with a lot of the restrictions that are placed on first-year drivers (passengers, curfew, etc), it does remove some of the incentive to drive. Any time there are more than 2 teens going someplace, they either need multiple cars or they have a parent drive so that they can all ride together. They end up walking or taking public transit, or getting a ride from parents, even if they all have licenses, just because they'd rather travel together than split up into multiple cars. I don't think this is the whole story on kids not wanting to drive, but it is an interesting effect.

[Anonymous]

We just insisted he get a license prior to leaving for college. He got his permit at 15y 9m and ended up getting his license at 17y 9m (a couple of days before the permit expired.) He only drove VERY sporadically and VERY locally until 20y and then something clicked and he became more confident and started driving a wider radius. He still doesn't LIKE driving, but is more confident and isn't paralyzed by anxiety.

[Anonymous]

Driving is not efficient because you can do work or use the phone easily. When self driving comes everyone will be much better off and can focus on something else

[Anonymous]

The shaming of parents whose kids don't drive needs to stop.

Learning to drive at a young age is actually not the total perk you think it is. Brains take a long time to mature, and contrary to what a poster said, years of teen experience do not make up for immaturity. A young adult who has just learned to drive and integrated all the info in a 20 year old brain, for example, may be actually a more responsible driver than another 20 year old who integrated the info at 16. Learning later can mean learning better.

I don't even agree that it's logistically more complex to learn to drive as an adult. College is not more time-consuming than high school, because students usually don't have all the obligatory extra-curriculars that high schoolers have to do to impress admission officers. They have to time to learn if they wish.

It seems to me that the only perk of driving as a younger teen is home logistics, when parents don't want to drive their kids around anymore. For families who don't have that problem, and/or who live in semi-urban or urban areas with good public transport, that pressure does not exist.

I lived in Paris as a teen and got my license at 19. I didn't drive regularly until much later, to drive my oldest to preschool. I am a responsible driver.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is like this too. Anxious and not interested. I don’t care, she has to learn to drive. It’s a non-negotiable skill she needs in life beyond high school.

I have an aunt who, likely, is ASD but my grandparents surely didn’t know that raising her in the 60s and 70s. They coddled and pacified her and never made her do anything uncomfortable. She moved back in with them in 1995 when her roommates all married and then she never left. My grandmother went kid to an assisted living community last year and it sent my aunt into a literal mental tailspin. My grandmother has never been better but my aunt CANNOT cope with any aspect of adult life on her own . Intellectually she can, she holds a job, has tons of money saved, drives etc but she has spent her whole life never pushing herself through any discomfort and now she’s absolutely drowning. Can’t cook, but won’t learn. Believes she’s broke (living in a fully paid off house) because she has to pay utilities now. She’s scared of everything- driving to a city, public parking, trying new food. I think of her often when making choices for my kids, how sometimes never pushing them to do necessary but hard things is unintentionally cruel and sets them up for difficulties later on that they simply become too mentally rigid to manage.

I have an ASD young adult. Perhaps walk a mile in their shoes before becoming so...awful.

Her quality of life now is awful. She would’ve been much, much better served by being pushed in supportive ways when she was younger and more adaptable. It’s stunning you think this post was awful and not empathetic to the fact that if my aunt had the benefit of being a teen now my grandparents would’ve had more information about how to parent her through challenges and give her real tools to process things in a healthy way. My grandmother has many regrets about this and the guilt eats at her- she simply didn’t know that my aunt needed pushing with support and life behind it and that simply absolving her of anything she didn’t want to do was terrible for her in the long run. I think they always thought she’d just magically “know” how to do stuff when my grandparents weren’t there to do it for her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Girls have to know how to drive themselves home. They just do.

That is so dramatic. My dd is in Manhattan at an arts school. Starting at 14 she would spends summers there for intensive programs. She couldn’t commit to classes or driving because of her schedule so no license. She and her friends are very comfortable taking Ubers, the subway and walking. Some of them have a restaurant job a couple of nights a week and would walk back to the dorm at 1 am. I don’t worry about her because unlike what Fox News claims, NYC is not a dangerous hellhole. There are definitely areas around large projects that aren’t as safe but they aren’t in those areas.

I don’t understand how kids in the suburbs don’t want the freedom a car gives you, that’s odd. A car allows you to go past your small little world and see what’s out there a little bit down the road.

No, it's not "so dramatic," it's basic safety. Your n of 1 isn't a useful anecdote.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the criticism with this generation's disinterest in driving is justified, but if OP's kid is too busy, that's a different thing.

My kid is not old enough, but almost there, and she's really, absurdly busy. I can imagine her being even busier next year and saying, yeah we gotta put this off, there's no way I can pull focus from other things rn.

I agree it's an important life skill and it should be taught sooner than later, but waiting a few months (summer?) to me is no big deal and even appropriate.

But OPs kid already did drivers training. So how is she now “too busy” to actually practice driving? I’m assuming parents are driving her everywhere to all the things that make her so busy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The shaming of parents whose kids don't drive needs to stop.

Learning to drive at a young age is actually not the total perk you think it is. Brains take a long time to mature, and contrary to what a poster said, years of teen experience do not make up for immaturity. A young adult who has just learned to drive and integrated all the info in a 20 year old brain, for example, may be actually a more responsible driver than another 20 year old who integrated the info at 16. Learning later can mean learning better.

I don't even agree that it's logistically more complex to learn to drive as an adult. College is not more time-consuming than high school, because students usually don't have all the obligatory extra-curriculars that high schoolers have to do to impress admission officers. They have to time to learn if they wish.

It seems to me that the only perk of driving as a younger teen is home logistics, when parents don't want to drive their kids around anymore. For families who don't have that problem, and/or who live in semi-urban or urban areas with good public transport, that pressure does not exist.

I lived in Paris as a teen and got my license at 19. I didn't drive regularly until much later, to drive my oldest to preschool. I am a responsible driver.

Yes, they should be shamed. Parents are letting their kids get off the hook from doing anything that makes them even somewhat uncomfortable.