Reply to DD not interested in learning to drive

Forum Index » Tweens and Teens

Reply to "DD not interested in learning to drive"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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. [/quote]

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

I don’t think some people can see beyond what they know and some have small worlds.  There are many many reasons that teens don’t get their license right away or at all.  The know it alls are all here.   [/quote]

If your kid is disabled to the point they CAN’T drive, you’re excluded from this convo. But many kids who don’t want to learn are not disabled and can drive and need to. Not making your kid learn something because they just don’t want to is a cop out. Our kids didn’t enjoy potty training but we made them do it even when it was hard for us.

It might take my anxious daughter longer to get comfortable driving alone and I can work with that but feeding her anxiety by saying “oh you don’t have to drive” would be a failure on me as a parent. Yes you have to learn. Yes I’ll patiently teach you. But letting them avoid it forever KEEPS their world small and fuels the anxiety rather than helping them deal with it in a healthy way and build emotional resilience by tackling something hard. [/quote]

+1000[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics