Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do I decide how and when to let her drive by herself?

Don’t you have a sense of what kind of confidence you have in her driving after practicing with her for 60 hours?

It is hard not to be a backseat driver even after the required hours.

Well do your best to shut your mouth. Just keep doing what you've been doing and have her do more of the family errands. Work on providing more practice on highways under your guidance. Then when your confidence grows, do some road trips to get her used to driving a few hours straight. Yeah, that's harder during a pandemic.

Start small...short daytime trip in the neighborhood and buld on it. Lot of it depends on how long they had the permit for and how much practice they did.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do I decide how and when to let her drive by herself?

Don’t you have a sense of what kind of confidence you have in her driving after practicing with her for 60 hours?

It is hard not to be a backseat driver even after the required hours.

Anonymous wrote:How do I decide how and when to let her drive by herself?

Don’t you have a sense of what kind of confidence you have in her driving after practicing with her for 60 hours?

You only become a good driver by driving. Let her practice, go with her, be patient and reinforce positive behaviors.

Yeah. For me, the first few times my kid drove away without me in the car were the most anxiety provoking parts of parenting by far. (until I walked away and left him in a dorm room six hours away).

Start near the house, daylight hours, no rain, not rush hour. Running to the grocery store on weekend afternoons and driving at 3:30 to a music lesson 5 miles away were good starts for us. Then let them go further. Then let them do a route they know well at night or in the rain or in heavier traffic. Etc.

Two things that help. New drivers text when they arrive and when they leave to come home. And I have to admit, the first few times my kid drove, I tracked their car on the Find my Friends app. So did every other mom I know.

In fact, texting and find my friend worked well in a number of situations. My kid did Western Fairfax to TJ— 45 minutes, not great traffic. My kid had to text upon arriving to school most mornings. And if he stayed after and came home late, text before he left at night, always. And it saved a lot of worry to think: the weather is bad, I hope he got to school okay, and be able to pull out my phone and see he was at the school. Or think he should be home by now and check and see he was moving down the road ten minutes away.

Good luck. It gets easier. You just have to take a breath do it the first few time. Wine helps.

This is a terrific time to teach your child how to drive in the city. The traffic is so light it is easier to learn how to navigate downtown, the circles and bridges. Also a great way to spend time with your kid and fill a boring afternoon.

Instinct. No hard road map here.

We made sure they had the route to school down really well, even with traffic. Even now during Covid, with the hopes things will eventually go back. Then check ins when he arrived somewhere. Then let them go.

Like everything else it’s an incremental access to responsibility and privilege. When my DD got hers (after the 70+ hours of accompanied driving for license) the first few weeks she was only driving in our small town by herself. Then we gradually expanded The territory we let her go. She doesn’t have her own car so always borrowing ours but we were in constant communication about where she’d be heading off to. I’m not gonna lie I did use the methods available to me to check on her location frequently especially that first year she was driving.

My husband is like this with our son. He had his permit for almost 9 months, drove a ton during that time in most conditions. Once he had his license, I just said, bye, see you tonight, when it was time, finally, to drive to school. My husband, on the other hand, doesn't want him driving. If you don't send them out the door, they'll never learn. I will say, he's not hitting highways yet, but day to day, just let her go so builds confidence. Why not?

Anonymous wrote:How do I decide how and when to let her drive by herself?

Are there not MD recommendations for this?

How do I decide how and when to let her drive by herself?