When our oldest daughter was fifteen and a half Janine and I told her that she needed to talk with her friends and figure out how to get a learner’s permit. She was approaching adulthood and we wanted her to be in charge. She wasn’t very motivated. And we weren’t very motivated. (The idea of spending hundreds of extra dollars for car insurance slowed us down.) The net result was two years slide by and she still hadn’t gotten her learner’s permit.
Our second daughter turns sixteen next month. She is very motivated to get her driver’s license. She talked with her friends and figured out the process. Her sister followed in her wake as she set up appointments last month. Now both of them learning to drive at the same time.
I spent the first couple hours in our church parking lot, one at a time. I had them put the car in low gear so it would naturally go slow. They drove around and around. After a couple sessions so they worked on backing up, parking and making three point turns. Last week I set up some cones so my second could practice parallel parking.
We were able to schedule a couple hours with a driving school for our second daughter. (Because our oldest is in college she is busy during the morning and we have to wait a couple weeks until the driving school has an open slot.) After the two hours with the driving school it is legal to let our second daughter driving on the road. So far things have gone well. She is cautious and serious about driving.
I have a fairly normal job as a software engineer, so I don’t spend much time with our children as they homeschool. It has been fun, and a bit stressful, to teach my older two how to drive.