It is so important, when teaching your teen to drive, that you never put your student in a situation that they are not prepared to handle. You don’t want your teen to get flustered or panic when they’re behind the wheel; that’s a hard thing to shake off and can make them nervous behind the wheel, even in situations they’re familiar with.
Luckily, Driver Ed in a Box® gives you a great tool for making sure your student is ready for every situation your lessons put them in. Those skill and commentary checklists in the Parent Companion are great tools; make sure they’ve mastered all the skills on the Parking Lot list and you can be pretty sure your student is ready for the neighborhood.
There are other ways to make sure your student is ready for a new lesson, though, if you’re not sure, and one way is to ease them into the new situation. For example, rather than jumping on the freeway when it’s time for your student to begin the Freeway Driving part of the instruction, you can start off on the feeder road or entrance and exit ramps. Just have your student practice getting up to freeway speeds and changing lanes before worrying about dealing with freeway traffic.
Watch this video to see Patrick Barrett, the Driver Education Guru, explain more about easing your student into the new lesson.