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#11
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Robyn Kozierok wrote:
In article , Louise wrote: Somewhat apropos, I've been wondering lately whether and how attention-deficit issues and driving schools fit together. Do the people who diagnose ADD and advise teens and parents on how to handle school with ADD also give advice about how an easily distractable young person can learn to drive safely? On a related note, how do you deal with the fact that a teen with ADHD may have impulsivity issues, making them perhaps more likely to engage in occasional instances of extremely unsafe driving behaviors? --Robyn, without any answers, just questions . I would withhold driving privileges. DD and DS are learning from me that there isn't any place in town that they can't bike to. Or ride a bus to. Or walk to. I think that's one vital thing a parent must teach a child: How do you get around if you don't have a car? So I could withhold the car from them (DS is so extremely cautious he's more likely to cause an accident from slow driving -- but I'm sure that will change) and it wouldn't be too onerous a burden. YMMV. Scott DD 11.9 and DS 9 |
#12
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In article ,
Scott wrote: Robyn Kozierok wrote: In article , Louise wrote: Somewhat apropos, I've been wondering lately whether and how attention-deficit issues and driving schools fit together. Do the people who diagnose ADD and advise teens and parents on how to handle school with ADD also give advice about how an easily distractable young person can learn to drive safely? On a related note, how do you deal with the fact that a teen with ADHD may have impulsivity issues, making them perhaps more likely to engage in occasional instances of extremely unsafe driving behaviors? I would withhold driving privileges. DD and DS are learning from me that there isn't any place in town that they can't bike to. Or ride a bus to. Or walk to. I think that's one vital thing a parent must teach a child: How do you get around if you don't have a car? So I could withhold the car from them (DS is so extremely cautious he's more likely to cause an accident from slow driving -- but I'm sure that will change) and it wouldn't be too onerous a burden. YMMV. Do you think that a teen can't do stupid life-threatening things on a bicycle? The point isn't really about driving, it's about giving a teen increasing independence when you justifiably don't trust their judgement. I'll give you that it is easier to take other innocent victims with you in a car than on a bicycle, but the notion that not driving somehow protects kids from the dangers of the teen years seems rather misplaced. (I agree that it is good to teach kids how to get around without a car -- easier in some locations than others! -- but that is rather orthogonal to the questions of independence and responsibility that I was trying to raise.) --Robyn .. |
#13
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On 2005-06-07, Robyn Kozierok wrote:
In article , Scott wrote: DD and DS are learning from me that there isn't any place in town that they can't bike to. Or ride a bus to. Or walk to. I think that's one vital thing a parent must teach a child: How do you get around if you don't have a car? So I could withhold the car from them (DS is so extremely cautious he's more likely to cause an accident from slow driving -- but I'm sure that will change) and it wouldn't be too onerous a burden. YMMV. Do you think that a teen can't do stupid life-threatening things on a bicycle? The point isn't really about driving, it's about giving a teen increasing independence when you justifiably don't trust their judgement. I'll give you that it is easier to take other innocent victims with you in a car than on a bicycle, but the notion that not driving somehow protects kids from the dangers of the teen years seems rather misplaced. (I agree that it is good to teach kids how to get around without a car -- easier in some locations than others! -- but that is rather orthogonal to the questions of independence and responsibility that I was trying to raise.) I'm with Scott on this one---teaching kids that they can get around by other means than cars is great for increasing their independence, without putting lethal weapons into their hands. It also provides them with a safer alternative to riding home with drunk friends. Although teens can and do do stupid things on bicycles, the risks are much lower than for drivers---in the US only about 800-900 people a year die on bicycles, and only a modest fraction of those are teenagers. Death by suicide is a much higher risk for teens as is death by riding in a car driven by a drunk. My view may be biased---neither my wife nor I have ever had a driving license (I did have a learning permit as teenager). We have found that walking, biking, and buses are perfectly adequate for getting around town, though we do have a somewhat smaller shopping radius than some of our neighbors (we're not willing to go 50 miles to save 20%). We do live in an area where public transit is fairly good (by US standards---still awful compared to most European communities) and where the weather is good for bicycling most of the year. Of course, we chose where we live knowing that we didn't drive, but we did live for 4 years in Ithaca, NY, which can't claim to have good public transit or good weather. ------------------------------------------------------------ Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics (Senior member, IEEE) (Board of Directors, ISCB) life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels) Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed) Affiliations for identification only. |
#14
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In article ,
Kevin Karplus wrote: I'm with Scott on this one---teaching kids that they can get around by other means than cars is great for increasing their independence, without putting lethal weapons into their hands. It also provides them with a safer alternative to riding home with drunk friends. In general, I think I'd rather have my kid be the "designated driver" than riding with friends, even if the friends are not drunk. This assumes that I trust my child's judgement and driving skill (diverging somewhat from the thread about what to do if you don't -- since my oldest is only 11, I don't yet know if I will be able to trust his judgement and driving as a teen, but I suspect that I will). I would think not teaching one's children to drive safely and expecting them to always rely on car-free transit would probably put them at greater risk of riding with a poor (not necessarily drunk) driver than teaching them to drive safely and sometimes providing them with a car to use. Do you think your teen will opt to bike everywhere when s/he has friends offering him/her a ride? This isn't to say that teaching kids to get around without a car is not a valuable and important skill. But you seem to be advocating not teaching/allowing teens to drive at all, and I think that that learning to drive safely and defensively is also a valuable and important skill. Although teens can and do do stupid things on bicycles, the risks are much lower than for drivers---in the US only about 800-900 people a year die on bicycles, and only a modest fraction of those are teenagers. That number means nothing by itself. What percentage of teens who use bicycles as their primary means of transportation die in bicycle accidents, versus the percentage of teens who use cars as their primary means of transportation who die in car accidents? The fact that the absolute number is small may well be a result of the fact that such a tiny percentage of people in this country use bicycles for transportation at all. we chose where we live knowing that we didn't drive, but we did live for 4 years in Ithaca, NY, which can't claim to have good public transit or good weather. That is impressive. I assume you didn't bike everywhere but rather relied on others (bus and taxi drivers, and possibly friends) to do the driving for you. While laudable from an environmental point of view, unless you have a particular reason for being unable to learn to drive safely, I would think that learning to drive safely and driving yourself would actually be safer. --Robyn .. |
#15
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Robyn Kozierok wrote:
In article , Kevin Karplus wrote: I'm with Scott on this one---teaching kids that they can get around by other means than cars is great for increasing their independence, without putting lethal weapons into their hands. It also provides them with a safer alternative to riding home with drunk friends. In general, I think I'd rather have my kid be the "designated driver" than riding with friends, even if the friends are not drunk. This assumes that I trust my child's judgement and driving skill (diverging somewhat from the thread about what to do if you don't -- since my oldest is only 11, I don't yet know if I will be able to trust his judgement and driving as a teen, but I suspect that I will). I'm with you here. But if I witnessed -- or was told -- my kid doing irresponsible things in a car, they'd find themselves car-less. (Well, they couldn't borrow our car anymore. No way on God's Green Earth will DD or DS have their own car in High School). DD and DS are, today, very responsible compared to their peers. Who knows how things will change in the next 4-7 years. I would think not teaching one's children to drive safely and expecting them to always rely on car-free transit would probably put them at greater risk of riding with a poor (not necessarily drunk) driver than teaching them to drive safely and sometimes providing them with a car to use. Do you think your teen will opt to bike everywhere when s/he has friends offering him/her a ride? This is the task I think that is most difficult to teach -- when to say No when you feel unsafe, i.e., when to trust your instincts. If kids read 'The Gift of Fear' by Gavin (insert last name here -- I'm blanking) -- does it register with them? How do you teach a kid to determine if their friends are safe drivers -- or how to rely on the judgement of others, when a good friend asks your kid to come along, saying that the driver, unknown to your kid, is a great driver. This isn't to say that teaching kids to get around without a car is not a valuable and important skill. But you seem to be advocating not teaching/allowing teens to drive at all, and I think that that learning to drive safely and defensively is also a valuable and important skill. Yes -- if you do not drive, then how does one inculcate the expectations that other drivers will have? My dearest friend from Kindergarten lived in the Bay Area for a long time, and remarked all the time on Driving While Oriental, that is, driving at odds with the prevailing culture, because the drivers don't grow up in a car. I'm hoping my kids learn a whole lot of good driving skills by observation. Scott DD almost 12 and DS 9 |
#16
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Kevin Karplus wrote:
On 2005-06-07, Robyn Kozierok wrote: In article , Scott wrote: DD and DS are learning from me that there isn't any place in town that they can't bike to. Or ride a bus to. Or walk to. I think that's one vital thing a parent must teach a child: How do you get around if you don't have a car? snip In our area, which is extremely rural with almost no public transportation, that would not have been a possible lesson to learn. My ds did bike down to the barn before he got his license, and they were sometimes able (in elementary and middle school) to take the school bus to where their horses were stabled, but then I had to go and get them when it was time for dinner. In HS, if they wanted to be in the band (practice was after school), or go out for sports they had to drive to school or else I had to come get them from school (and both dh and I were working in a place where that would have been difficult) or they had to ride with a friend. For them to drive to school was safer than riding with a friend. I'll give you that it is easier to take other innocent victims with you in a car than on a bicycle, but the notion that not driving somehow protects kids from the dangers of the teen years seems rather misplaced. When each of my kids got their driver's license they were restricted from taking any other un-related children with them unless I gave specific permission for them to do so. And dd#1 was told that if her sister caused a problem, she was to put her out on the side of the road and leave her. [They've now got a law in MD about teens driving unrelated persons, but this was way before that.] When ds was learning to drive, I was sitting in the car with him and I bought a pulse monitor to measure my heart rate. I tried it out in the car while we were driving home. WHOA - my pulse rate was WAY up there. And then when we got home it went down to normal again. So teaching a kid IS stressful for the parent, as is this whole issue. My mom did a LOT of driving with me. We drove back and forth from Baltimore to Philadelphia almost every weekend when I was a senior in HS (before there was an I-95 on old US Route 1), and I did a good percentage of the driving. (I agree that it is good to teach kids how to get around without a car -- easier in some locations than others! -- but that is rather orthogonal to the questions of independence and responsibility that I was trying to raise.) In my case, my kids were responsible for their own horses - I did not do any of that for them, and it was a big responsibility. snip My view may be biased---neither my wife nor I have ever had a driving license (I did have a learning permit as teenager). We have found that walking, biking, and buses are perfectly adequate for getting around town, though we do have a somewhat smaller shopping radius than some of our neighbors (we're not willing to go 50 miles to save 20%). My job required that I used my own car to drive to locations all over the state carrying equipment with me. While Maryland is a small state, it does extend from the Atlantic Ocean to West Virginia. Not only is there is no statewide transportation system that would allow me to be at job sites at the start of whatever shift I was monitoring, but the equipment was too heavy and bulky to allow me to use such a system even if there had been one. So I absolutely had to have a car and a driver's licence in order to do my job. My dd#1 would not let her oldest son get his driver's license because he could not get a good student discount on his insurance. I think this was false economy (although I have not said so to them). This meant that he never got to practice with his parents in the car, and get the benefit of their guidance. So when he went to college, he didn't know how to drive. When he dropped out of college and was living at home, he could get work, but he couldn't get there (not only was it too far to the metro station, but the roads had a lot of speeding traffic and no shoulders or safe place to ride a bike or walk) without someone at least driving him to the metro and picking him up after work. Plus sometimes he was working out of metro range. He finally (at about age 22) got his license. He found that he is unable to keep the car in gas and insured so he doesn't have a car now, and has to rely on friends to get home and see his parents. I guess locally he walks grandma Rosalie |
#17
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In article ,
Scott wrote: This is the task I think that is most difficult to teach -- when to say No when you feel unsafe, i.e., when to trust your instincts. If kids read 'The Gift of Fear' by Gavin (insert last name here -- I'm blanking) -- does it register with them? How do you teach a kid to determine if their friends are safe drivers -- or how to rely on the judgement of others, when a good friend asks your kid to come along, saying that the driver, unknown to your kid, is a great driver. Actually, what my kids found harder was to refuse to get in the car with an impaired grownup. How do you tell your friend's father that he's too drunk to drive? I wish I'd thought to have a code for them to call home with when that happened: my kid would call home and ask to be picked up after I'd told her she could only go out if she had a ride home; I could usually tell from the tone that there was a good reason to do it, but they felt they couldn't SAY why in front of the adult in question. DH didn't always pick up on that, and would start to demand that she get a ride home from the person who'd promised one. I know they did call on occassion to get picked up because the teen driver had been drinking; and I found out recently that my son called a friend to pick him up and bring him home when HE had been drinking (I would have picked him up; in spite of assurances that there'd be no repercussions if that happened, he apparently was too embarrassed to call.) -- Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care |
#18
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On 2005-06-07, Scott wrote:
Robyn Kozierok wrote: I would think not teaching one's children to drive safely and expecting them to always rely on car-free transit would probably put them at greater risk of riding with a poor (not necessarily drunk) driver than teaching them to drive safely and sometimes providing them with a car to use. Do you think your teen will opt to bike everywhere when s/he has friends offering him/her a ride? This is the task I think that is most difficult to teach -- when to say No when you feel unsafe, i.e., when to trust your instincts. If kids read 'The Gift of Fear' by Gavin (insert last name here -- I'm blanking) -- does it register with them? How do you teach a kid to determine if their friends are safe drivers -- or how to rely on the judgement of others, when a good friend asks your kid to come along, saying that the driver, unknown to your kid, is a great driver. I don't know how my son will be as a teen, but I suspect that he *will* bike or walk everywhere rather than ride in cars. This isn't to say that teaching kids to get around without a car is not a valuable and important skill. But you seem to be advocating not teaching/allowing teens to drive at all, and I think that that learning to drive safely and defensively is also a valuable and important skill. I do plan to have my son take drivers education when he turns 16 or 17, but since we won't have a car in the family, and will not buy him one, he will have somewhat less opportunity to practice than most teens. Yes -- if you do not drive, then how does one inculcate the expectations that other drivers will have? My dearest friend from Kindergarten lived in the Bay Area for a long time, and remarked all the time on Driving While Oriental, that is, driving at odds with the prevailing culture, because the drivers don't grow up in a car. I'm hoping my kids learn a whole lot of good driving skills by observation. One learns a lot of good driving skills by riding a bike in traffic and getting proper safety training. In fact, I have often thought that middle schools should offer correct bike safety education as pre-driver training. Unfortunately, what passes for bike safety education is often aimed at very young elementary school students, and amounts to little more than "get out of my way or I'll run you over". Proper on-road bicycling skills are much the same skills that motorists need (knowing where to look for hazards, who has the right of way, ...) plus some specialized skills (emergency turns, emergency braking, rock dodging). ------------------------------------------------------------ Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics (Senior member, IEEE) (Board of Directors, ISCB) life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels) Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed) Affiliations for identification only. |
#19
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In article ,
Kevin Karplus wrote: Although teens can and do do stupid things on bicycles, the risks are much lower than for drivers---in the US only about 800-900 people a year die on bicycles, and only a modest fraction of those are teenagers. Death by suicide is a much higher risk for teens as is death by riding in a car driven by a drunk. It's nice if you CAN live somewhere where mass transit and biking is do-able. When I lived in Madison, WI, I didn't have a car, and even after DH and I got together (he had a car) we only used the car on weekends, to go out of town or do some shopping that was harder to do by car (hard to bring a stereo or TV home on the bus...) I didn't have a car when I lived in Superior, WI or Duluth, MN, either; I was able to bus, walk and bike pretty much anywhere I wanted to be, and used cabs when I had to transport something big (or asked friends with cars to help me out.) However, where we live now, it's almost impossible to rely on mass transit and biking. For example, for my oldest to get to the doctor she has to see, it would take three different buses (each way) and take over an hour and a half. She can't afford to take over 3 hours to visit the doctor very often. Biking would be pretty close to impossible, since the most direct route is by freeway, and the back roads would take her on some streets that I don't think are safe to bike on. She can bike or walk to work, but if she were still living at home, she would not be able to rely on the bus: again, it would take several buses to get there, and the buses stop running after about 9:45 (she is often not done until after 10:00). And that's the other thing: when teens and college age people get jobs, it isn't uncommon for them to have to work quite late into the evening. Since the buses stop at 10:00, they can't use buses, and many of the streets they'd have to take are not particularly safe after dark. It's nice that you could pick where to live based on the easy availability of mass transit: we have to live where DH can get a job. All of my kids know how to read a transit map, and how to get around that way. When we visited Boston, my son had no problem figuring out how to use their system to get to where he wanted to be. I did make sure of that, and we used to rely on the light rail frequently (we don't live near a stop any more). -- Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care |
#20
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In article ,
"Rosalie B." wrote: My dd#1 would not let her oldest son get his driver's license because he could not get a good student discount on his insurance. I think this was false economy (although I have not said so to them). This meant that he never got to practice with his parents in the car, and get the benefit of their guidance. I did the same thing, but it wasn't an economy measure -- it was an incentive to get good grades, which all of my kids were capable of doing. Fortunately, they all got their license while still living at home, so I was able to drive with them quite a bit before they went in for their road test. All three of them passed the road test the first time they took it -- which I attribute to the superiority of my teaching (she said modestly). -- Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care |
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