Then....the young lady from my big girl troop got in her car and drove herself home. This was the first time in all my years as a Girl Scout leader that I have released a girl to go home on her own rather than safely delivering them into the care of a parent or their proxy. Big changes! Big girls!
Of course it only makes my Girl mad because I am not letting her drive yet. As superlatively responsible as she is in most things, I do not think her quite ready for that responsibility. To be honest, I do not think teens under the age of 18 should drive at all - the statistics are grim.
She is finding the whole transportation thing hard, lately. Not really in practice, but in theory as she looks forward to working on her Gold Award and oh, so many projects. Her dad and I cannot really arrange the whole family around where she needs to go all the time and she anticipates needing to go a lot of places in the next two years. Driving would not really help here as there is no way she'd be getting a car anyway, but she resents the fact that I also will not let her catch rides with other teens who do drive - again, the statistics are grim. The statistics are quite extremely grim for teen drivers with other teens in the car - no. We're not doing that, but I seem to be the only parent who feels that way: statistics-reading me. She is going to have to figure out routes and start riding the bus around town some, which is fine with both of us. She still wishes I would let her go places where I won't let her go, though - she wants to do so much, accomplish so much, so all at once!
Soon enough, she really will be ready to take off on her own for good.
2 comments:
From what I've read, teens should be the best drivers because of their quick reaction times. However, their sense of judgment hasn't solidified (better word?), and that counteracts the quick reaction times. The fact that she actively wants to drive says to me that when she does get to drive, she will be primed to be an uber-careful, attentive driver.
Most of the stats say that (due to the lack of executive function, presumably) teens who are 18 with little experience drive better than teens who are 16 with a lot of experience. Also that teen drivers with other teens in the car are the worst. I hope she will be careful!
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