Help your parent/supervisor to help you
keys2drive believes that beginners need to find their
own way to learn to drive, in order to make it real.
This may be a hard thing to trust at first. Many
parent/supervisors may feel the need to take control of the driving
sessions. Others will be comfortable sharing the
decision-making.
Either way, you need to be able to work together, not against
each other.
Discuss your goals and agree to a plan
At keys2drive, our first wish is to help you work with
your parent/supervisor, while aiming to go six months on
P plates with zero crashes. The learning you do to achieve that
will make you safer thereafter.
This means working closely with the skills and knowledge of your
parent/supervisor, even if their opinion is different. After
all, they too will want you to be a safe driver.
If you can agree on some specific goals to work towards, make a
plan together on how to reach them. Later you can refer back to it
if things go astray.
Use your parent/supervisor's experience
New P plate drivers crash far more than other drivers.
Suddenly they’re allowed to find their own way - on P's
they are free.
When they crash, it's probably not because they don’t
have enough skills to drive the car. Rather, it’s likely they will
have put themselves in a situation that their
parent/supervisor or driving instructor would have
cautioned against. This is because experienced drivers
think about the situation differently.
You can do better. Start off by realising that your
parent/supervisor and driving instructor probably know a lot about
driving that could be really helpful.
Tune in to what they are trying to communicate. Some important
skills aren't obvious, even to a supervisor. Read between the
lines. If you read all the material on this website, you'll
get a pretty good idea of what we mean.
In the meantime, here's the first thing to do:
Help your parent/supervisor understand what you need
You probably want to find your own way, to a certain extent. You
want to make your own choices. You probably don’t want to be
controlled by your parent/supervisor.
Your parent/supervisor might not be able to get their head
around letting you find your own way.
Be prepared to learn and understand how other people think, and
why they think that way. Talk to them and work towards a shared
understanding. You can expect an unhelpful argument if you cling to
your opinion and they cling to theirs.
Chances are your parent/supervisor is worried about your safety.
They might not necessarily know exactly how to be a good
supervisor.
Your parent/supervisor might think letting you find your own way
means throwing you the keys to do whatever you like. You know
different. So talk about it.
Here are some more ideas that you could use to help your
parent/supervisor:
- Tell them that you respect their experience (with no but…)
- Prove you are responsible. Show you are prepared to take small
steps.
- Be curious and ask questions
- If you feel worried say, ‘When I am in this situation I feel…
because…’
- Talk about how you see things and where your opinion has come
from
- If you disagree with them ask where their opinion has come
from
- Avoid saying words like but…'I can’t,' or 'I won’t.' Use
questions.
Here are some pages and activities designed to help you find
your own way: