Taking Your Drivers Test

My oldest son took his drivers test last week. He did not pass. He was upset. I was ambivalent about it. Of course I never want him to meet with failure but I am also in no hurry for him to be driving. As some of my aforementioned blogs note people are crazy.

My son is sixteen and while he is conservative in many things he also is sixteen and thus knows everything. This made teaching him to drive not as enjoyable as it could have been but about as enjoyable as one might have expected.

He failed due to a lane change issue and not following directions well. I have to confess the latter was not a surprise. This is not a strong suit of his, it is not in most cases is he trying to be defiant and disregarding so much as he has not learned to discern the difference between what is important to hear and what he thinks he will hear and thus assumes he hears.

I tell myself and my children when they listen that dealing with adversity is part of life and that protecting them from all disapointment does not help their future.

Still as a parent when you see your children make mistakes you warned them about, when you realize at middle age that you know just what they are going through and could clear so many hurdles for them if they would just listen....but in the end you cannot. You cannot make them listen and you just have to hope that like the vegtables they supposedly will eat if you put them on their plate enough that the things you tell them over and over might seep in. There are no guarentees however.

If there were my son would have heard and digested me telling him ten minutes before his test that he wanted to be sure to turn around at any and all lane changes and not to use his mirror. He did not. He failed. It is not the end of the world. Hopefully as he grows there will be no larger consequences to him disregarding what we tell him.

That is the parents hope.