I am teaching my son to drive. He is the third and likely the last I will teach. But teach is really an inadequate word. It is a side by side experience that requires everything I have learned as a parent over the last 19 years. Each of my children learns differently. I have known this since they were babies. My oldest would go to the play centers and observe the other children, learning by watching and eventually trying it herself. She is shy with new people and experiences, which I forget because she is not shy at home. In any case, she would have to visually analyze an event or activity for what I thought was a long time before venturing forth. My middle child would fling herself into things and figure it out as she went. Watching her swim was so frightening. My oldest, after watching and listening, would swim gracefully. My middle would thrash around eventually figuring out what to do by trial and error. My youngest is unique unto himself. As a little one, he was terrified of things he could not control, going down hill in the car, being a swing, riding a bike was a long time in coming. 9 years ago, when he was 6, we went to a cabin in the woods during the winter. He found a sled and a little hill and started sledding on it and did so for hours. No one else seemed to notice what a novelty this was. This was the same kid that screamed in the back seat of the car! But he had to take change in doses he could tolerate.
Now he is 15 and learning to drive. He is definitely more willing to challenge himself with new things and adventures, but he was very anxious about driving. I think what convinced him to take the class was that he didn't want to have to rely on others to take him places. We opted to take the class early, at just 15, rather than wait the 6 months, so we could have a longer time to master this skill. He pays attention to the minutia and misses some of the big stuff. It is maddening, I won't lie. There is an expediency to one's actions when learning to drive. If I say "stop", it means right now. He hears me, thinks about it, then eventually gets to it. ARGH! "But I didn't know why I needed to, I didn't understand." "You don't have to understand, you just have to do it when I say to." This is so not how I parent, but it is how I teach driving. After he ran over the stop line a few times, he realized that he was keeping his body, but not the car behind the stop line. He didn't clue into the fact that his body was now significantly longer than it was when he got out of bed.
He was trying to explain how he learns yesterday. He said he is bad at things until he is good at them. The family looked at him crosswise. I think he meant it like instead of a gradual improvement, he is bad for an extra long time and then he gets it. I wonder if that is true or if that is just his perception of the truth. If I were to graph it, I think it would look like an anaconda that has swallowed a pig, rather than a steady ascent up the mountain. As his driving teacher (he did take a course as well), I see that he doesn't make the same mistakes as the last time, he just makes new ones as he avoids those he made before. But he has embraced the challenge of learning, even though it is difficult for him. I appreciate his tenacity.
He wants to know he did better than yesterday. It is hard to answer because he did differently. So I say, "We didn't die." Like my dad says, "Any flight you can walk away from is a good one." Sometimes that is enough.
