Tag Archive: parenting
Help Your Teen Become a Better Driver
December 26, 2013
In a recent AAA article, it has been examined that parents who ensure that their teens receive enough practice are more likely to help their teens become safer drivers. Also, though quite unrelated driving, AAA feels that parents who spend more time with their teen drivers prior to them driving on their own also effectively aide in their teens’ driving abilities.
Here at Lowest Price Traffic School, we also place a great deal of emphasis on parental involvement in teen driving. With editionslike Driver Education Handbook for Parents, as well as our Parent Taught Teen Driving course, we help parents more effectively guide their teens into becoming advanced early drivers.
“Unfortunately, teens still have the highest crash rate out of any age group, so it is critical for parents to be involved and use evidence-based techniques that work,” said Dr. William Van Tassel, AAA Manager of Driver Training Programs. “These recommended coaching techniques may seem rather obvious, yet research findings show that parents aren’t regularly practicing these techniques.”
A recent study that surveyed parents and teens during the process of learning to drive found that:
- Nearly half of parents reported that they wanted their teens to get “a lot of practice,” when asked about their teens’ driving skills. Only about one in four parents mentioned practicing in a various situations or conditions, such as bad weather, heavy traffic, or on unfamiliar roads.
- Roughly 47 percent reported that they have not allowed their teen to drive in an unsupervised area, even if they have passed their driving test and received their license.
- Relatively few parents were observed imparting rare driving tips to their teens – such as visual scanning or anticipating other drivers’ behaviors.
Parents should ultimately make sure that their teens receive ample driving practice, which goes beyond getting practice on routine trips on familiar roads. The apparent thought here is that teens will be much more competent drivers, or at least more attentive, in a relatively unfamiliar setting.
If you are looking to bolster your teenager’s driving abilities, then our courses are ideal for you! At Lowest Price Traffic School, we are proud to foster this idea of parent-lead teenage driving safety, and is why we created the programs in the first place. Your children already look to you to learn the rest of life’s lessons, but unlike a few lessons that come from their own personal experiences, the more knowledge you throw their way, the better they will retain the information!
Restricting Your Teen’s Access to Alcohol: A Guide for Parents
March 19, 2009
Restricting your teen’s access to alcohol is one of the most important things you can do for them as a parent. There are highly-publicized risks of fatal alcohol poisonings and devastating car crashes due to drinking and driving, for example. But there are other, less-publicized risks that could be equally destructive to your teen’s health and well-being, such as increased risk of sexually transmitted diseases and unintended pregnancy, violence and rape, and suicide.
Teens are ill-equipped to handle the physical, mental or emotional consequences of drinking alcohol, but they have poor impulse control and a sense of invincibility and must contend with overwhelming peer pressure. They need consistent support and structure from their parents if they are going to avoid alcohol and its attendant repercussions.
Here are some guidelines for developing a zero-tolerance policy for alcohol for your children:
- Start an ongoing dialogue early about alcohol: the risks, the ramifications, and your desire for your teen not to use alcohol. Emphasize abstinence from alcohol as part of your overall value system. Ask for a commitment not to use alcohol.
- Offer praise for good decisions and guidance for mistakes. Working together to rectify a bad grade can be good practice for dealing with bigger problems in the future.
- Help teens set short-term and long-term goals. Relate their goals to their physical endurance, mental acuity, and emotional fitness. Ask them how they think using alcohol could keep them from achieving their goals.
- Invite mentors and other people your teen would not want to disappoint into the dialogue. Ask them to support your efforts to encourage abstinence from alcohol.
- Train your children to ask, “Is it worth the risk?” Make sure they can apply the potential consequences you’ve discussed to real-life scenarios. Discuss the situations of people you know or those of people in newspaper and magazine articles and ask your teen to help you list the problems they have encountered as a result of drinking alcohol.
- Model good behavior where alcohol is concerned. While it is true that it is legal for you to drink alcohol, teens have very little tolerance for what they perceive as hypocrisy, and they often fail to make distinctions when making judgments.
- Keep alcohol locked up and out of sight. Many adolescents, and even pre-adolescents, begin experimenting with alcohol in their own homes.
- Monitor situations where temptation can occur: for example, when your teen participates in unsupervised group activities or attends events, such as weddings, where alcohol is being served to adults.
- Limit your teen’s attendance at parties, both in number and in length of time spent. Make a pact to pick your teen up at any time, from any place, with no questions asked until the following morning when you are both calm. Limit sleepovers unless they are at your house under your supervision.
- Communicate with the parents of your teen’s friends. Ask what they are doing to ensure that the children don’t have access to alcohol when they are under their supervision. Share situations (not names) that you have discussed with your teen; their responses will help you determine whether or not you are on the same wavelength regarding teens and access to alcohol. Tell them you welcome feedback on how your child behaves when you are not present and that you will not reveal the source of the information.
- Observe other parents’ efforts to restrict minors’ access to alcohol. Offer to help chaperone at events your child will attend. Be careful – even “good people” have erroneous ideas about teaching teens to “drink responsibly” under their supervision. Make sure your teen understands that even if another parent is allowing the use of alcohol, your teen does not have your permission to partake and should come home immediately.
- Keep your teen busy. Kids often get into trouble when they have too much unsupervised free time. Invest time and effort into helping your teens find safe, fun ways to spend their time, such as participating in faith-based activities.
- Adopt a trust-but-verify policy. Even “good kids” can find themselves in difficult situations. Your teen doesn’t have the benefit of your years of wisdom and experience. Explain the risks of being in the wrong situation; even if your teen doesn’t drink, being present at a party where teens are drinking can have serious consequences. Monitor your teen’s – and your teen’s friends’ – Facebook and MySpace pages.
And, last but certainly not least, realize that your teen is vulnerable to making poor choices every day. Don’t let your guard down. Finding a balance between being too controlling and allowing too much freedom will require constant effort, but it is a worthwhile endeavor. Your teen’s health and happiness may depend on it.
Driver Education: Commentary Driving
June 25, 2009
For most parents who are teaching their teens to drive, using commentary driving seems to make perfect sense. But like many other simple tasks, commentary driving is not always easy to do well, and if done improperly, can be frustrating for both the parent and teen.
Since commentary driving involves speaking out loud while driving, parents should model it for teens well before they allow the teen behind the wheel of the vehicle. Teens are likely to feel self-conscious about the process (and parents may, too), so several lessons just on the method itself will be helpful. Parents should emphasize the fundamentals; for example, taking note of the speed limit every time they enter a new street and watching for pedestrians in every crosswalk.
Just as they would with any other driving lesson, parents should begin practicing commentary driving in a relatively simple driving environment and progress to more complex situations, such as driving on the expressway. Each lesson in a new driving environment should be preceded by a demonstration by the parent of commentary driving in that environment; this allows teens to absorb some of the new hazards they will encounter from the safety of the passenger seat.
One purpose of commentary driving is to focus the driver’s attention on her or his thoughts, which in turn helps to maintain a high level of alertness. This is particularly helpful with teens, who may be struggling to overcome the excitement of finally getting to drive enough to focus on the process. It’s also helpful to parents, who otherwise might experience great anxiety as they wonder whether or not their teen has noticed hazards ahead, such as other drivers drifting out of their lanes or following too closely or cars parked on the side of the street.
While commentary driving involves talking while driving, the content of the discussion should be specific and targeted to the driving environment. The driver maintains a running list of observations and actions. An example of commentary driving is: “Approaching intersection….green light….car in oncoming lane waiting to turn left….checking mirrors….light still green….checking intersection….crossing intersection….”. Comments that are general, i.e., “checking ahead,” are not helpful because they don’t increase the awareness level of the driver. The person commenting should say what they see and how they plan to handle what they see.
Parents should resist the temptation to interject into teens’ comments unless absolutely necessary. Questions such as, “What would it mean if that traffic light was yellow?” and “How many seconds should your following distance be if it starts raining right now?” distract teens from what’s in front of them and teach them to rely on someone else’s observations instead of making their own. Parents should make note of any discussion points on a log and cover them at the end of the lesson when the vehicle is parked.
If teens get distracted and stop commenting, parents should encourage them to return to the process with general comments like, “Keep going; tell me everything you’re seeing and what you’re going to do.” When teens repeatedly stop commenting, they may be tired or overwhelmed, signaling that the lesson should end. After the lesson, parents can point out that when drivers stop commenting, their level of alertness goes down.
Parents can also ask questions that help teens understand how commentary driving works after the lesson is over. For example, ask, “Could you practice commentary driving while talking on your cell phone? How do you think talking on a cell phone affects a person’s driving?”
Commentary driving can be an effective driver education tool if used properly; parents who invest time and energy in the process help their teens to be better, safer drivers.