Teaching your kids to drive.

[Rex in OTZ]

I think teaching kids to drive is a good thing.
The news  reports recently of the 8yro boy who took control of a speeding vehicle while his grandfather sufferd a siezure.

I was lucky in a way to grow up on a Middle west ranch where kids were expected to help at a early age,  my first solo was age 6 on a Farmall H, wasent till my second year of 4-H (age 9)that I was a full praticeipant in my families prairie haying each summer and moving the haystack's each fall, one the oddest things I remember was I helping my Dad by driveing the pick-up truck straight and stopping when asked while my father walked alongside the 1969Chevy 4x4 laying out 4" wood fence posts and barbed wire to build a fence, at times I'd have to slide off the seat and step on the brake (non too jently) this tossing my kid sister off the seat to the floor (1yro) I recon the year was 1973 so I was 7 then I remember my embarrassment of putting the truck in park without stopping fully (makes a nasty racheting sound).
By the time I was a 7th grader I was proficent with hayfield equipment and livestock feed dispensing (Swartz feed wagon comes to mind as wella s a 1976Ford LN600 with a Oswalt feeder box), driveing tractors pulling the different farm impliments at my uncles and grandparents farm's my favorite was a 1974 JD 7520, the biggest was a 1983 JD 8630, long hours on a JD rideing lawn mower, pulling a rotorary hoe across a corn field on a cabless JD4020 is no fun, school vacations there was never any free time they were spent helping my relatives earn a living.
learning to drive and the early experence earned are life long skills most of todays children dont have easyt access to.

I live in a Alaska town now with my kids, they all have at one time or other drove for me (Honda ATV and snowmobile).
I think kids should be able to contribute.

[vacek]

Great Topic.

Yep I was 13 when I took my first load of wheat to town...I was a late starter relative to my older cousins.  My father and grandfather made sure all of us could drive from a very young age.  We started by driving in Granny Gear while Granpa was throwing bales off the back.  By the time we were 12 we were expected to drive tractor all summer. 

Anyway, I taught both of my boys to drive standards by the time they were 9-10.  Got them started by shifting for me, then put them behind the wheel in 4-wheel low and the graduated quickly from there. 

[blind ear]

Stage One: Shopping center parking lots early Sunday mornings.

[Rex in OTZ]

I had some a moments my heart rate had risen while letting my 13yro girl back my honda and 2 wheel trailer into the back yard.
No she dident bend anything, we both gained valueable experence keeping calm and thinking things through.

[Rock Home Isle]

I was driving home with the family one morning and my oldest said, “Hey dad, did you know that Grandpa taught how to drive?”

I said, “Wow I had no idea. Would you like to drive now?”

And she replied that she would indeed. So I slipped out of the front seat of my suburban and slid into the passenger side as she put the car into drive…then we were off to the races.

She just took off down the street and weaving back & forth…then she looks me dead in the face and said, “which one is the break?” I thought that I was going to die, as she went through the stop sign without even slowing down.

I finally got my seatbelt off and was able to get my hands down on the floorboards and shove the break as hard as I could until we stopped, then with my other hand I reached up and I reached up and was able to get the car into park. I was in total shock, “You got to be kidding me…You told me you could drive…”

It was about this time that I heard laughing from the back seat, and I yelled, “What do you think is so funny? We could have all died.” My son answered, “Golly dad, you sure were a lot better than grandpa was yesterday when he tried to teach her how to drive.”

I drove us the rest of the way home…it was a slow quiet trip.

[blind ear]

Rock Home Isle, Does your depth of forethought frighten you? (I have been there many times having three kids. I'm just glad they and I survived the situations I caused or didn't prevent happening.)eddiegjr

[Rock Home Isle]

Rock Home Isle, Does your depth of forethought frighten you? (I have been there many times having three kids. I'm just glad they and I survived the situations I caused or didn't prevent happening.)eddiegjr

It was a total and complete eye opener...

I must admit that it happened a couple of years ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. My kids still laugh about the look on my face when it hit me...Hey she has no clue how to drive 

She's graduating this Sunday, and this happened like when she was 12.

But you are right I should've asked more questions....way more questions. Heck I was driving at 12..maybe not legally...but I knew how to drive and it was because my Grandpa had taught me.

 I just thought that the tradition was continuing.

[BBF]

Kids is one thing, teaching a wife to drive is in another ball park altogether !!

[mikemayberry]

Last fall my 13 year old son and I saw a large rattlesnake in the road.  Since it was near a house with playground equipment, we stopped to dispatch it.  Have long wanted an intact snake to skin with the head and rattlers still on so was working on how to kill it without damage or getting bit.

Long story short--it was the closest I have ever come to being bitten by a snake but I retreated and regrouped.  My fine son says to me, "Dad, if you get bit, I will drive you to the hospital!"

It was at that moment that I realized the driving lessons in the pasture and on the section lines were paying great dividends.  I know he could have gotten me to medical help should I have needed it.

The snake, a 5 footer, is in the freezer awaiting skinning.  All the parts are still there so my hope for a fine skin with head and rattles is still alive.  And I am too!

MM

[gypsyman]

My first experience was when I was around 6-7. We were having company over, and had to move the Pontiac Chieftan, I think it was a '56 or '57. This was either 1960 or '61. So, my dad and I went out to the car, and he started it, but let me drive it. All I had to do was back it up. So I did, right into a maple tree. Never gave it the gas, so wasn't going that fast. Plus, cars back then had a pretty good bumper on them. Don't think I hurt a thing. I do remember mom yelling, but all dad could do was laugh. We got a Farmall Cub tractor a few years later, and I grew up driving that thing around. When I was 14, dad use to let me drive to baseball practice at the high school about 1/2 mile away. I would drive there, he would drive back home, but when practice was over, I had to walk home.
Now, my oldest is 11, and he cuts grass with the rider, pretty soon, he'll use the compact tractor. He miss's some spots, but I'm not a big one on a perfect lawn. He's getting there. gypsyman

[Rock Home Isle]

Kids is one thing, teaching a wife to drive is in another ball park altogether !!

I can only imagine.