As you teach your teen to drive, you and your teen are going to get hours and hours and hours and even more hours of driving practice together. And it’s all completely necessary. Practice makes perfect (almost, anyway).

While your teen builds the necessary collision-free driving habits, you’ll probably do most of your training during the daylight hours. It’s just easier that way; it’s easier to see everything. There’s a reason that most states require teens to practice some driving at night before they can get a license, though, and that’s because driving at night will take some getting used to.

This week’s tip is this: however many hours of night driving your state requires is not enough! Trust me, your teen needs more than the minimum when getting used to night driving. She may be a great driver when you get to night driving, and she may handle it very well, but practicing night driving is not so much about building driving habits, as it is about conditioning yourself to adjust to the night driving conditions.

Watch this video to see Patrick Barrett, the Driver Education Guru, explain more about the importance of night driving practice.