PARENTS

Being a parent of teen children myself and being a driving instructor, I am well aware of the thoughts and concerns that are running through your head every time you think about your teen behind the wheel of an automobile.  Any parent has good reason to be concerned about their teen driving.  Driving is a very complex and unpredictable activity that can be very challenging at times even for seasoned drivers.  Studies have shown that teens are the most likely to crash when they are 16 years old and they get less likely to crash every year after that until about age 20.  Teens are in a very strange time of their life.  They are changing from children into young adults, they have just started high school which often means a new school and new friends, they are maturing physically as well as mentally, and with some teens maturing much faster than others, it can be a very trying time of life.  Add to that the complicated task of learning to drive and you can bet that their concentration and mental processing isn’t always working as well as maybe it should be.  Their brains are not fully developed yet and for whatever reason, many of them seem to be overly confident with no real logical explanation for why.  And as I said, they are all different.  Some of the students are quite capable and rightly confident, some have great difficulties and are still fairly confident, while others struggle with both the skill to drive and the confidence.