It is likely that every parent will eventually have to face the prospect of their teenage children wanting to learn how to drive. There will be many reasons why they want to do this, from the obvious “I want to be able to drive to places by myself whenever I want” to “it will give me a better chance of landing a job”.
In the UK, you can apply for a provisional licence when you are just 15 years old, but in order to learn to drive a car you have to be at least 17 years old. If your offspring has recently announced that they want to learn how to drive, most parents will have a series of questions running through their minds such as “should I teach them how to drive?” or “are they ready for the road yet?”.
Writing this blog post has made me recall when I first started learning to drive. A relative initially started teaching me, and whilst things appeared to be going well at first we soon started to quarrel on the road.
Unfortunately, it got to a point where our relationship was “strained” to put it mildly, and so it was by mutual agreement that I was to hire a professional driving instructor to continue teaching me about the rules of the road and how to drive a car.
This is why I want to tell you that you shouldn’t feel bad about not teaching your kids how to drive! And in case you want further justification why you should entrust your offspring with professional driving instructors instead of yourself, here are some more reasons to make you feel less guilty!
You might teach them bad habits
The thing about teaching your offspring how to drive is that they can indirectly learn your bad driving habits! That’s why you should get an approved driving instructor to teach your children the correct way of driving.
It’s quite straightforward to find a good driving instructor local to you; for example, if you live in Leeds, just go onto Google and type in “driving lessons Leeds” to find out a list of driving instructors that can teach your kids how to drive.
Your time is valuable
Parents in Britain these days are busy people, more so than our parents or grandparents were when they had teenage children. This is because the cost of living has risen to such an extent over the years that it is now virtually impossible for all parents to stay at home when they have children.
Because of this, people now have to resort to taking full-time jobs or even two or three jobs to pay the bills, especially the cost of childcare during a child’s early life stages. Many parents also want to further their career, with a growing number even setting up their own businesses and working extremely long hours – even on weekends and bank holidays.
If this sounds like you, then you will have doubtless realised that you can’t afford to spare some time to teach your kids how to drive, but you shouldn’t feel guilty about this; millions of parents in the UK are in the same boat as you, working hard to make ends meet.