DD doesn’t want to drive

[backinthebox]

DD has turned 17, and I assumed it would be high on her list of priorities to learn to drive. We have a small car that she is insured on and could drive whenever she needed it, and have paid for driving lessons for her. She had a few practice sessions with DH, and I don’t know exactly what went on but she will now not drive with DH in the car, and won’t have a go with me either. She tells me her weekly lessons are progressing well, but not so well that she feels she wants to drive our little car anywhere with me in the passenger seat.

We live rurally, and there is no public transport within 2 miles of us. This was not the case when we moved here, but the local council decided that posh village folk did not need buses 🙄 and cancelled all the services some years ago, despite this being a thing we looked for when moving to our current home. We cannot let the children grow up isolated from their friends and social lives, so we have always given them lifts anywhere they need to get to, without question, but DD thinks it is not unreasonable for this to continue and that she can call us to collect her at any time of day or night with very little notice. She is undiagnosed ND, probably ASD, and this leads her to be both very abrupt in her requests for lifts, and also anxious about learning to drive when there are other cars on the road. It’s wearing me out a bit.

How do I persuade her to move forwards with this? The car is there for her, but she doesn’t like changing gear - is it a ridiculous suggestion to just take the car to a dealership and swap it for an automatic, and learn and do the test in that? I would just like to be able to get to the end of the day without having spent 2 hours driving her around when there is the means for her to do that herself if she applied herself to it. The trains were not running last week, and instead of driving her to the train station a few minutes away, I had to drive her to and from school, in my week off, and it took literally hours each day.

Just stop giving her lifts - or at least put a time limit on them. But learning to drive is really hard for some people, and she is learning - just in a safe environment. I started learning with my dad but I refused to get in the car with him after he put the car in the wrong gear and I nearly bunny-hopped into a wall.

Even now at 43, I don't particularly like driving my parents because the sharp intakes of breath and braking foot in the corner of my eye get on my nerves.

If you have a good instructor then no, not particularly. DD had 4 months of lessons and passed first time. No other practise as at the time we didn’t have a car suitable for her yet. She would’ve hated me teaching her and vice versa - was better for our relationship to leave it to the professional!

Sounds like your DH put her off massively.

When mine learnt they refused to drive either DH after a while as he was constantly telling. Watch for that car
Go left now
Can't you see that indicator!

Honestly he's a nightmare to drive either even as an already passed driver.

It's very common for teens not to want to drive with their parents, usually because their parents either put them off, scare them, or generally act like a dick.

I'd lay money on your DH doing one of those three.

I only went out with my DM once when I was learning. She clutched the door handle, gasped at every move I made and slammed her foot down on an imaginary break constantly. She can do it with an instructor if she wants to.

If your daughter is having proper driving lessons with an instructor, then she's not 'given up'. I went out once with my Dad whilst learning to drive, and it was awful! I never did it again! Perhaps your husband wasn't very patient with your daughter? She can only learn at her own pace. You can't make her learn quicker. She will get there eventually. Making her go out with you or your husband, will only stress her.

So get her a new coat?

Honestly you're picking up all the slack here when you should be getting your daughter to problem solve. I get she may have ASD, but she's also a Cambridge candidate where surely you and she is expecting challenges to her way of thinking?

I would definitely consider an automatic - my eldest twins are only 15 but when the time comes I think we'll consider it for them too. But we live in a city with excellent transport links so they're not as dependent on me for lifts.

What has your DH said about what happened when they were out driving? Clearly something happened.

Apparently he wanted her to back out of a parking space because she would have to reverse out of the driveway at home before going anywhere. She couldn’t do it first time, so decided that was that for her. I don’t think DH was in the right asking her to reverse either, but it wasn’t an entirely outlandish thing to do. He grew up on a farm, and I grew up rurally - we were both very confident with cars, quads, dirt bikes and tractors by 12. We also have off road vehicles here at home, but she’s never been interested. DS otoh is always begging to drive the quad or jeep in the field.

And she would have been taught not to do that by the instructor. To always reverse in. This is really why parents 'helping' can be counterproductive.

Maybe your low opinion of her comes across and adds extra pressure when you're in the car.

I beg your pardon? For such a short post you’ve got an awful lot of inaccuracy and assumption in there! For a start, I’ve never even been in the car with her when she’s driving, so it would be impossible to add any extra pressure at all. And where do you get the ‘low opinion’ from? It is possible to immensely proud of your child and frustrated at the same time. There is, of course, the possibility that you just enjoy throwing brickbats at strangers on the internet asking for advice.

One of the problems with parents supervising teens is you can teach them the wrong thing.

In the test she's supposed to say that she should reverse into a driveway and go forward out.

Practising going into and out of a parking space is pretty tricky. I used to get up early with mine and practice with cones in the local school car park.

It's not a great thing to spring on a teen.

The instructors teach things in a particular order and this is usually for a reason. Parents can mess this up, sometimes by thinking they know the law better and sometimes by teaching things that are flat out illegal.

www.highwaycodeuk.co.uk/using-the-road-reversing.html#:~:text=Do%20not%20reverse%20from%20a,drive%20out%20if%20you%20can.&text=check%20there%20are%20no%20pedestrians,in%20the%20road%20behind%20you.

Neither of mine wanted to learn at 17, dd2 started at 19 and passed at 20 (alas pandemic got in the way a bit) but she only practiced with her dad at the very end. Other dd is still refusing, she's asd and too nervous to try

If she’s ND and only 17 honestly I would just keep driving her. If she’s not happy driving she will just be stressed out with it. Poor kid. Cut her some slack.

Stop the practise with your DH, it is obviously knocking her confidence and leave it to the instructor who is actually qualified to do this. Parents aren’t able to teach to test standards - it’s very different from real life driving and most experienced drivers (your DH included) have built up bad habits on the road without realising. I am sure that he means well but by the sound of things he is doing more harm than good.

Parking will come with time, stop with the unnecessary pressure. She is far from the only learner who doesn’t like it! DD passed her driving test last December and it’s only in the past few months that she has really become confident with reversing into spaces in busy car parks. She passed first time but took a few more lessons with her instructor in the months afterwards to build up more confidence without the pressure of driving to test standard - this was really helpful for her and I’d suggest you do the same for your DD when the time comes.

She's only 17 and she's learning. It's not like she's refusing lessons. She can't drive by herself and it's entirely reasonable of her not to want to practice with her parents who probably wind her up! Just be patient. She'll get there.

its too hard learning from a prent i tried an we just argued-how long has she been having lessons it takes different time for different people

also are you up to date with all the new rules and highway code-even from 17 years ago when i passe (went with auto in the end) you could be teahing her inorret practises which will just confuse her

I hated changing gears and couldn't drive a manual car.

Definitely get an automatic.

I am almost 50, NT, and don't drive. I took many lessons, passed my theory test easily, but never felt comfortable making all those decisions when driving. I was always afraid I would cause an accident and hurt or kill someone. I never took the practical exam. I'm a good navigator and know all the rules, but never want to be in the driver's seat.

I have, since the age of 18, chosen to live in places with excellent public transport. Honestly, the people saying "it's a life skill that she needs to learn" have no idea what it's like to be me or someone like me. Some people don't want to drive and should not be made to.

@backinthebox , you chose to live where you live. You could tell your daughter you will give her lifts a certain number of times a week and with enough notice, but not whenever she wants and with no notice. Trust that she's learning at her pace. It's quite likely she will eventually learn to drive, but don't force her.

She’s 17 and taking lessons and potentially ND - give her a break! Yes, it’s draining being the taxi but your rural living situation isn’t her fault.

I was having lessons at 17, living rurally, and my dad (who is an excellent driver) took me out once. I also refused to ever drive with him again. It was horrific for both of us. I hated learning to drive so much, and it gave me such anxiety, that it took me 20 years to take my test, as I just decamped to London for uni and never needed it until we left decades later, post children. (I’ll happily give my dad a lift now )

I wish I’d passed earlier, and hadn’t let the anxiety take hold, so there’s something to be said for keeping up the encouragement and opportunities to learn (and financially I couldn’t afford to learn for most of my intervening 20 years too!) but FGS don’t add pressure. Just encourage and remind her demanding short -notice lifts are not cool when asking for a favour.

If she actually does have ASD that will presumably be playing a big part, and it isn’t as simple as “make her” or “if you make things inconvenient enough she’ll do it”. My 18yo DS has (diagnosed) ASD, ADHD and anxiety and despite being extremely academically bright (someone said if she can go to Cambridge she can drive - not necessarily true at all), he won’t learn to drive.

He says the sensory input involved is too overwhelming, and the constant decisions he’d need to make would make him anxious and cause him to freeze up. Trying to force him would make him very distressed and potentially be unsafe so I’m not. He’s perfectly well aware this will restrict his life choices and accepts that.

He isn’t a driving instructor, and it’s likely he wasn’t being very patient with her, even if he thinks he was being reasonable. Parents are often the worst people to teach their kids to drive. If he was short with her when she didn’t get it right, I don’t blame her for not wanting to drive with him any more.
She is learning, on her weekly lessons - it just isn’t as quick as you’d like, but it’s probably the right pace for her, and pushing her to do extra practice with people she doesn’t want to drive with will probably be counterproductive.

I hated being taught to drive by my Dad. He was a lovely man, and he did give me months of his time for which I am very grateful, but we clashed on this and I always knew we would.

My Dad was a very good driver himself, but an absolute perfectionist and that just didn't work well with very anxious learner driver me. I found it upsetting and was always scared of getting things wrong so it was not our finest hour. I needed a professional driving instructor to bolster my fragile confidence.

Perhaps there was a similar situation between your DH and your DD? She has maybe now learned from experience how tense things can get (which is one of my own abiding memories of learning with a parent). She maybe wants to avoid that.

I'd say don't force it. She IS learning to drive. She's doing it at her own pace with her instructor and is probably avoiding some upsetting family tensions that way.

I have obvious reservations about parents teaching their children to drive. My own experience led me to decide that I would not be involved in teaching my own DDs. Quite simply, it was more important to me that we preserved our good relationships and continued to get along. My DH had also come to the same decision after a similar experience learning to drive with his mum.

Our DDs learned with professional instructors and they helped fund it with part time jobs.

Fully agree with all of this - relationship preservation should always take priority. Even DD’s driving instructor didn’t teach his own kids for this reason! It is much easier for a teen to take constructive criticism and instructions from a qualified, calm third party rather than a stressed parent. I successfully taught my brother to drive (many years ago!) but there was no chance of that with DD, both she and I would’ve hated it.

Can she try an intensive course to progress faster? I’d be pushing to be honest. My dc will need to learn to drive. It’s so limiting without a licence and much easier younger.