Seven Benefits of Teaching Your Teen to Drive

The moment you’ve been dreading for nearly 16 years is finally here. It’s time for your teenager to learn how to drive. Whether it’s your first go-round or your last kiddo, you have to decide if you’re going to teach your teen to drive or let a professional driving instructor do it. If you’re still on the fence about what’s best for your teen, take a look at these seven benefits of teaching your teen to drive to help make your decision a little clearer.

Teens may benefit most from hearing your personal driving experiences rather than from an instructor they don’t know. Talk to your teenager about your ups and down of driving and tell stories of any tickets or car crashes you were involved with and what you learned from those experiences. You can turn any personal driving story into a valuable learning lesson for your kid.

Drive whenever, wherever you want: Homeschooled teens have more opportunities to practice driving whenever, wherever. Every outing to the grocery store, soccer practice, or trip to the city can be a valuable learning experience for your teen. This will help them become more comfortable behind the wheel and give them the opportunity to act out real-life scenarios.

3. After spending 50 hours or more supervising your teen behind the wheel, you’re sure to feel a lot more confident about their driving skills. Hopefully, they will have earned your trust by the end of the course and feel better about tackling the wide open road without you.

4. Go more in-depth with the lessons:

As a driving instructor, you have the ability to go more in-depth with your lessons and talk about driving more often than driving school instructors. Unlike most driver’s education courses, you will have time to thoroughly discuss the before and after of every lesson and talk about other driving topics, such as maintenance, repairs, and the anatomy of a car. You can also teach your teen how to change a tire, jumpstart a battery, test the oil and coolant levels, and much more.

5. A huge benefit of teaching your teen to drive yourself is that you get lots of valuable one-on-one time. You don’t have to worry about other teens being in the car or instructors rushing through lessons. It’s just you and your child. During this time, you can discuss the seriousness of driving and talk about your driving expectations.

6. < One of the biggest benefits of teaching your teen to drive is the convenience of being able to do it on your own time. You can organize the driving lessons to fit around your schedule and use nights or weekends to fit in lessons when it’s convenient for you and your child. You don’t have to mess with dropping off and picking up your teen after their driving education class.

7. Teaching your teen to drive is cheaper than enrolling in a driver education school. Depending on where you live, a parent- teaching program will likely cost no more than $20 or $30. The money you save from not enrolling in a driver education school can be put toward your teen’s insurance or first car.

Our thanks to Arianna Bush for sending this interesting article. It really makes sense in many ways: you are able to judge your teen’s capabilities of handling a car, and see how serious they are about driving safely. The most important thing either parents or drivers’ education programs can stress is not using cell phones while driving. pb