Seeing as how I messed up the first kid so bad, I’m not going to make the same mistake twice. So the other night when my son said “I don’t want to learn how to drive!” I said, “Huh. Innerestin’. Alls I want is 10 minutes. You have to give me 10 minutes. And then you’re free to go about your business”. I never pushed the first one to drive. Much. Well, I did kind of push him but you can only push a kid as far as his buried feet will alow. Thing 2 is much easier to push around.
“Fine” stomp stomp stomp.
I drove us over to a local middle school/elementary school with a large parking lot.
“All I want you to do tonight is get a feel for the gas and the brake. That’s it”.
“Fine” stomp stomp stomp. “Which one is the gas?”
Cripes. Do these kids never watch? He’s been riding in my car for 17 years now. You’d think that for one second he might have looked to see what my feet were doing. But from the moment that kid was able to sit in the front seat he’s been working the radio or his iPod.
He got the brake and the gas quickly. And then he could not stop parking. Wanting only to center the car perfectly in a parking space.
“Could you please just drive a little instead of driving five feet and parking, getting out of the car to see how well you parked, getting back in, driving five feet and parking, getting out of the car to see how well you parked, getting back in. Please?”
“This is fun!” Drive. Park. Drive. Park. Check text messages. Drive. Park. Drive. Park. Check text messages. Drive. Park.
“I bet you think this is boring, don’t you?” he asked.
“God. Yes. Just drive without parking for a minutes, puh-leeeeeeez?!!!!”
I good almost a solid hour out of the kid. Few more visits to the parking lot and I’ll have him over for his behind the wheel. Let that guy have some fun with my kid.
Note: 2nd part of this entry has been removed because I really don’t want to deal with unsolicited suggestions. Unless you’re walking in my Chuck Taylors, you just can’t know. And I think I have enough on my plate without having to weed through suggestions.
Does it sound to you as if his friend’s mother has house rules? That he doesn’t want to follow? Hmmm.
The answer to that kind of thing is, “you learn to support yourself, then you can make your own living arrangements and do what you like.”
My son learned how to drive by observing long before he was old enough to be licensed. It cost me $90 the day he got caught. It cost *him* three extra years before I allowed him to get his license.
Why does that sound to me like “he’s coming home to live because you have no rules at your house?”
Or am I just being too sensitive?
Any idea why your kids don’t/didn’t want to learn to drive? My two boys COULDN’T WAIT to get their permits/license? I thought all boys wanted to have the freedom that a drivers license gave them?
The spud had to be pushed into learning to drive, and I still don’t get it – I couldn’t wait to learn to drive and get my license when I was 15!
Now, of course, I’d be perfectly happy to let someone else drive all the time.
The Mom came in a couple weeks ago with the urchins and said, “Tell mom what we did today!!!”
Yes. The Mom took my five and six-year-olds driving in the hotel parking lot.
I’m sure she’d be happy to train Thing 1 and Thing 2 for you…
I wasn’t too keen on learning how to drive. I wanted my freedom, for sure, but I knew driving would come with all sorts of limits. And of course it did. No driving with my friends till I had my license for six months, no driving on the Beltway (I am still rather nervous when I’m on it), etc and so on. Finally my parents signed me up for behind-the-wheel training without asking if I wanted to do it. I was almost 17 by the time I got my Virginia license, though I’d gotten my Nebraska permit a couple days after I turned 15. My parents hadn’t wanted to take me driving, so my friend’s mom did. Oh that was nerve-wracking. I guess that’s why I waited so long to drive again.
Once I got my license, they gave me three turns around the neighborhood in my mom’s manual-transmission car before they let me loose. I became my brother’s taxi driver and taught myself how to drive stick along the way. I kept telling him not to tell Mom and Dad I’d stalled out the car at a light. AGAIN.
Comming from a family of people (save my mom) who would have been born with car keys in their hands if it were possible (including yours truly), I have never really been able to comprehend why any one would not want to learn to drive. (as a farm kid I’ve been driving more since before I was 14, much younger if you count w wheelers and snowmobiles) Talk about the ultimate freedom.
But then there are a lot of things about me that probably make no sense to anyone not living in my head, so I’m certainly in no place to judge.
As to your (older) son, maybe he’s realizing home wasn’t such a bad place as he liked to think, and being on his own, isn’t all he had it cracked up to be, (IE, maybe a little hard pill of reality is kicking in.
I also had rules in my house, but a son who refused to follow them and who was bigger, stronger and louder than me. Now he’s paying the price. But seems to be doing okay for now. The true test will be when reality really sets in and he has to keep it up for real, instead of just playing the game to fool them in to letting him out.
I don’t understand these kids today. Does that make me sound old? When I was 15 I was chomping at the bit to drive and so were all my friends. Your kids don’t want to drive. I have several friends with teens and their kids don’t want to learn to drive. My cousin didn’t learn to drive until she went away to college. What gives? Isn’t driving independence any more?
OMG I feel your pain! What color is your neck brace?