Driver's Ed- Take Two!

This blog post will be accompanied by completely unrelated pictures as the child I will be discussing has asked me NOT to put pictures of him on the blog. He does make exceptions for group shots and special occasions, but doesn't consider this post to be worthy.

We just graduated our second child from driver's ed! Connor had his last drive last week and would have passed if it had been the actual drive test. The instructor wants him to work on parallel parking and backing around a corner before his test, but he would have scraped by with a passing score on this drive. Today, he had his final class where they took the written test. Connor had the highest score in the class! By 8 points. I'm not saying this to brag, I'm saying it justify the fact that we haven't totally screwed our kids up with our relaxed homeschooling method. When they need to they are perfectly capable of functioning in a classroom setting and even passing tests with flying colors.

His next step is to complete 50 hours of driving with a driver who has been licensed for at least 5 years. 10 of those hours must be at night. Then he just has to wait until his 16th birthday and he can be officially licensed to drive.

Can I just say that teaching a child to drive isn't something that gets easier the second time around? A long time ago I was talking to my Stepdad about skydiving. I asked if it was hardest to jump out of a plane the very first time. He told me it was actually the second time that was the hardest, because you already know what to expect. That's sort of how I feel about teaching the kids to drive. Connor is probably a much safer driver than Devon was in the beginning just due to personality type. Devon is much more "fly by the seat of your pants" than Connor is. She also tends to be a little overconfident at times. Connor is a very "type A, everything in the proper order" type of kid. But giving your child control of a large hunk of metal that is capable of traveling at speeds of over 80MPH (I'm not talking about cars going any faster than that, I'm just not) quite easily is a little unnerving. Connor obviously is a very conscientious driver and I'm sure everything will be fine, but I admit that I let Rod do all the beginning lessons. 

Hopefully it does get easier eventually since we have 5 more kids expecting to learn to drive someday! We did count out though and it looks like Devon will have had her license long enough to be the responsible adult by the time Duncan can get his learner's permit. That way she can teach him.