Teaching Your Teen To Drive - Tip # 3 Critique On The Spot

"The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery" ~ Mark van Doren

Talk to your teen as you travel together. Give him the benefit of your vast experience by speaking aloud your stream of conciousness in regards to the traffic situation. Analyze the situation ahead just like you always do, but now remember to turn up the speaker system and let the kid hear the hundreds of observations and decisions you have to make to stay alive during a simple trip to the mall.

Your kid has been watching you drive for a long time. Over the last fifteen years you've made it look so easy he just might think he can just step in and do even better than the old folks.

Then he gets behind the wheel and finds out it's not as easy as it looks.

So help your teen sharpen his awareness, focus and decision making by including him in a continuous verbal expression of what you are seeing and reacting to on the cold, cruel road. After a few trips, get him to start talking too. This allows both of you to know what the other is thinking, seeing and planning.

I've found that it's best to compliment good moves and point out errors immediately and then move on. This is mainly because I want the student to get the news within the context of the action. So much happens during a driving session that he probably won't even remember the action I'm critiquing if I bring it up 15-30 minutes down the road - unless it was a near death experience.

You can also take the multi-media approach to teaching by incorporating body language and hand signals. Sometimes events unfold so quickly that words just don't do the job. If you see a car nosing out of a driveway, a simple gesture in that direction will alert your driver to the threat.

My Dad never did get the hang of that when I was a kid. He'd just scream "LOOK OUT!!!" and expect me to identify the hazard. All he did was spook me. Please be nice to your teen.

Anyway, now is the time to remind yourself of the safety hazards you notice while you're driving and communicate these to your teen as you travel. Remind him that defensive driving is all about anticipation.