How to Teach a Teen to Drive

Video Transcript

DR. F. FELICIA FERRARA: Hello. I'm Dr. Felicia, and I'm here to speak to you about how to teach your teenager to drive. Now, most parents panic at just the mention of teenagers driving, but we all get through that sort of stumbling block of life. What you want to do is first thing depending on your child's maturity and the level of dexterity that your child has makes a difference if you're going to teach them on a stick shift or if you're going to teach them on an automatic car. If you have a child that's already awkward, you want to set them up for success so you want to go the easiest route which would probably be to teach them how to drive an automatic car. If you have that car in your family, the person who starts the teaching should be in a good relationship with the child. If the parent and child are already at odds with each other over other things and they're both very high-anxiety level persons, you might want to reconsider having a different family member teach that person, the child or teenager to drive. In the meantime, if there is a lot of conflict that arises while you're trying to teach them to drive because patience is the key here and many parents have a short fuse when it comes to driving on the road, please consult your professional driving school because that's your best option. They're more objective. They're used to having kids do different things in their cars, and they also have an extra set of brakes if they have to make a fast stop. So by all means, assess the level of maturity, the type of car you're going to use for teaching driving, the person's relationship with the teenager and if all else fails by all means go to your professional driving school. Save yourself a lot of headaches. Good luck.