It's odd sitting in the passenger seat while he drives. There's no sense of panic or impending doom, just a slight bit of irritation when he accidentally hits the accelerator instead of the brake, or pulls his turns a bit wide. But we don't make a big deal about it.
(Naturally, we're practicing in a big, empty parking lot.)
Back in Virginia, Driver Education was part of the school curriculum, and it was one of our regularly scheduled classes. This is not the case out in Michigan, where most kids go to a driving school. Personally, I prefer it as part of the high school experience. As an extracurricular activity, there is no guarantee that your friends won't be there to share the experience. In school, you know as a matter of fact that your best friends will be making fun of your bad driving mistakes all year long.
Especially if you happen to crunch a few cones.
I don't remember much of Driver Ed, other than the trailers where they had the driving simulators. Instead of desks, we sat in two columns of fake cars and "drove" while watching projected scenes of a front windshield. We were judged on our ability to turn the wheel or press the brake at the appropriate time to avoid crashing into something. Totally crude by today's computerized standards, but very awesome in 1979.
My parents took me out driving, too. I especially remember being out with Mom, marvelling at how calm she was in the face of my admittedly "risky" driving habits. She was either keeping her eyes closed, or practicing an intense type of meditation which kept her blood pressure low and even.
I'm trying to do the same with Adam, letting him pick up the skills by practicing at his own pace, and letting him have the room to make a few mistakes now and then. The worst part is trying to keep from blasting him with lots of advice all at once, which completely overloads the brain circuits. Brakes - steering - accelerator - mirrors - rules of the road: it's hard to keep everything straight at the beginning. But he'll get it eventually. And it might even help him handle the multi-tasking he's going to need later on.
Cheryl got me this really cool wheeled scrap-booking luggage case to hold all my Sunday School supplies. Now I have a place to put all my crayons, colored pencils, notebooks, paper, glue, and idea books! And it's so much easier to carry!
So for our first 'case' project, I picked out a nice little pop-up card for the kids to make, based on Matthew 17:1-13 (The Transfiguration).
(This is Mary's.)
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