Round Two

Just this past January, we released our firstborn son with a driver’s license and a car to use under our direction. I’ve barely adjusted to being a driver again after so many months in the passenger seat… yet by the end of this month, I’ll begin the cycle again. This time, our youngest will get her driver’s permit, and it's back to the passenger seat and white knuckles I go! Round two.This time I know what to expect. I know the chances are I will live through this training process; I’ve survived once and I’ll survive again. I also now know that you’re legally obligated to insure your driver the day they get their license, whether you ever allow them into a car or not. Who knew?!!As much as I hope that I’m better prepared the second time around, the biggest lesson I learned in my first tour of duty was that you’ll never be prepared enough. Teaching your child to drive is the entire parenting cycle on steroids.We did everything we could to prepare Mark to be a safe driver. He had lots of hours of practice in daylight and in darkness. If it was a rainy day, I would push him out the door so he would learn how to drive in the rain. We paid for driving school and made sure he had the proper perspective on the amount of responsibility involved. We put all the equipment in his little car not only to prevent him from using his cell phone while driving, but also for us to track his whereabouts. We even made him set money aside for emergency savings in case he has any mechanical problems.At some point, after all we had tried to do, there still came a day when we simply had to let him go. We either had to decide to trust him to drive or not. I can't follow him everywhere he goes and I can't watch his every move.The 18 years of parenting were remarkably imitated in the 18 months leading up to that day when he pulled out the driveway on his own. Mark’s a good driver. No tickets and no accidents in the first four months is a great start. Almost every parent with older children has told me it’s not a matter of if he has an accident, but when. This, too, is such a picture of parenting.We’ll never feel like they’re ready. In truth, they probably aren’t ready, but they’ll never become ready until they take that first step by themselves. There were some things Mark would only learn when I wasn't sitting in the passenger seat.If you have younger children, this may not make any sense. How on earth does a mother send out her son without complete confidence he is an A+ driver? I would've asked the same question a year ago. Then I drove by the high school and realized there are hundreds of parents in the same boat.Shortly after Mark started driving on his own, he and some friends wanted to go out. He knew he could only have one person in the car with him at any time. When he returned home that night, I asked him who drove with him. He told me the name of the friend and mentioned that his other buddies had driven in a different car. I asked him, “Why did you pick him?" He said, “Because he's the most responsible of all my friends and I wanted him to be with me to help me make good decisions.” I could've fallen over!It ain't perfect… but it's cool to see them take steps to grow into who God designed them to be. Whether you’re in the first years of parenting or the last days, take courage that God will continue to teach them when they’re beyond your grasp. twitter | facebook