How to survive having a teen driver

image As you may remember (I know State Farm does), it was a year ago this week that our son became the first of our kids to get his driver’s permit.

That leaves two more of our teens who will likely be entering the roadways over the next few years.

I’m really sorry about that.

For those of you who might be facing a similar situation, or who are now reconsidering having children at all, I’d like to offer this short video sharing a few tips with parents on how to survive having a teen driver. It’s less than two minutes but it could save your life.

Especially if you’re driving anywhere near our neighborhood…

Published by

Ned's Blog

I was a journalist, humor columnist, writer and editor at Siuslaw News for 23 years. The next chapter in my own writer’s journey is helping other writers prepare their manuscript for the road ahead. I'm married to the perfect woman, have four great kids, and a tenuous grip on my sanity...

49 thoughts on “How to survive having a teen driver”

  1. Unfortunately I will have one in October. And, unfortunately, this did nothing to calm my fears. Especially after he just left in a car with my brother (whose driving skills are a commercial for Xanax) in search of Pokemon creatures.

    Reply

  2. LOL – I could not stop laughing – brilliant, cracked me up. Well, I was a teen driver in the uk, a while back. It was my brother who had the unlucky task of sitting with me when i was learning. So on the flip side – me the learner and my brother aka parent, wanting to knock me out , take the steering wheel away from me. It left me in a state – I did eventually pass 3rd time, but for a long time I could not drive with him in the car. When I eventually past i was with my dad. Then mum learned to drive and I would let her drive, and became the terrible parent, – it took her ages to recover from me. I can’t tell you how bad i feel for that. But today she drove me one way – and I am so thankful I dont have to drive all the time.

    So it is hard for the teacher be it a parent or elder brother. But, it is hard on the receiving end -because whatever happens in those driving lesson – stay with you for some time and impact how you drive when that person is car…. It does go away eventually.

    Great post. Made me crack up. But- sorry – I had to talk about the flip side.

    Reply

    1. Lol! I have to admit, my son is a pretty decent driver. In fact, I don’t like it when he’s a passenger because he’s always telling me when I’m driving to fast or don’t come to a complete stop. The NERVE! 😉

      Reply

  3. I taught my son to drive, starting in the winter…let’s just say something happened with a snowbank – a tow truck was called – it’s basically a secret I will call to my grave. Best wishes!

    Reply

  5. I hope your nerves hold up for the next few year. Me, I’ve got 8 years to pretty much block out the terror of having a teen driver in my future. I’m not going to think about it, I’m not going to think about it, I’m not going to….

    Reply

  7. Nervous driver or nervous passenger? I know that when my kids are old enough to drive, I’ll have my imaginary foot pedals on the go…and my hands up on the dashboard. (I’m terrible!)

    I’ll bookmark this video… It won’t be long until my daughter takes to the roads. God help us all!

    Thanks for making me laugh 😊

    Reply

    1. You may want to buy one of those Play School pretend driving dashboards with the steering wheel and horn. You can mount it right above the glove compartent to give you a sense of control 😉

      I’m very glad to know I could give you a laugh today, Amanda… 😉

      Reply

  9. Thanks for making me laugh, and reminding me of teaching three young people to drive, My fondest memory is of my daughter putting our car on the sidewalk in front of my house and heading straight for the fire hydrant.[funny when we wanted to wash the car we could not get it over the curb into the yard to do so].I survived the driving lessons and so shall you.:)

    Reply

    1. Haha! If she’s anything like my youngest daughter, she’d jump the curb for concert tickets, too! Thanks for the encouragement, and for reading 😉

      Reply

  10. Have faith Ned! Those days are behind me, although my girl has stated that she always closes her eyes when she backs up a car. It is tempting to believe her on occasion….

    Reply

  11. luckily, i’m heading to ireland tomorrow! just in time, now i can terrorize them by driving on the wrong side of road and trying to avoid sheep and pubgoers.

    Reply

  15. I have survived unscathed thus far. My car has also, although my son thinks my car is also a trash can. It has been 7 months for me and I still go outside to check my car when he gets home. More than once, all the windows were open, as well as the sunroof.. with more than one storm brewing above my head!

    Reply

    1. I’m happy to say my son bought his own car, a 2008 Jeep Cherokee, that belonged to a mechanic’s daughter — so we know it was well cared for. He keeps his football gear, snacks and gym clothes in there. Thank God for those pine tree air fresheners…

      Reply

No one is watching, I swear...

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s