Teaching Your Teen to Drive Safely

Teaching your teen to drive can be a very daunting task for most parents. Just the idea of letting your teen get behind the wheel can raise one's stress level through the roof. Even with driver education training by certified instructors, parents must be aware that their teen is also strongly influenced by what he or she observes when in the driver's seat. When you take into account that motor vehicle accidents are the primary cause of death for teens in the US – killing 5,000 young people each year - this makes it imperative that they do not pick up any of our bad driving habits.


An excellent resource for parents and teenagers who are learning to drive, which also gets a huge thumbs up from kidsgoals.com is, http://TeensLearnToDrive.com/ This website is the companion to the book “3 Keys to Keeping Your Teen Alive” a 250 page workbook that complements the Graduated Drivers Licensing programs of North America and is full of information and tips on how to teach teenagers to be safe and responsible drivers. It is presented in a way that makes it enjoyable for teenagers, using humour, games and quizzes to learn the skills needed and easy for parents to follow. It also uses real life examples of other teens' driving experiences. The website itself has an extensive driving lessons video library, as well as other driving topics geared at teen drivers and their parents.

Tweens, Teens and "Love Lifes"

My step-daughter was with us at the weekend, at 17 years old she is a bit of a stunner and frankly when she's all dressed up and made up she can look older than me! However we still sometimes forget and think she's about 3 years old and our little baby.
She was full of stories of her new boyfriend, Robin, and how romantic he is - cooking her a meal for Valentine's day, etc etc.

The "love life" of a teen - or "tween" for that matter is not always this great. Most of them have an upsetting time at one stage or another.

One thing to consider if you have a child at this stage - or indeed earlier in many cases - is whether you can do anything to help them develop a healthy body image.
Monicka wrote an awesome article about just this, which I thought some of you might find helpful, so here is the link:

Help your child to foster a healthy body image.
Happy Parenting,

Cassie