Driven To Distraction?

Last week it was time to mark another milestone. I took my daughter for the rite of passage that is…a driving permit. She passed the test, paid the $14 and posed for her photograph. And so the process begins, again.

For the third time now I’ll be training a teen driver the ways to navigate the road. Fifty hours – minimum – and a year’s wait, and she could be slipping in behind the wheel of an automobile, all by herself. Meantime, we’ll cover a variety of basics, I’ll make sure she knows how to change a tire, and we’ll have some quality time together.

Safety, of course, is the primary goal. I want my kids to become good drivers, in a variety of weather conditions and with different circumstances like heavy highway traffic and everyday distractions. I want them to demonstrate confidence and competence as they tool around in several tons of sheet metal.

But what to do about those ubiquitous cell phones? Here in Colorado, there’s a new law banning teens from texting while driving. I’m alright with the concept of discouraging risky driving habits, but from what I can tell, that is a very general law, one which might be hard to enforce (how can a patrolman tell if the individual was texting, or just dialing a number, or perhaps checking the GPS for directions?). Matters not, as my new drivers already have a no-cell-phone-while-the-car-is-moving policy, so texting isn’t supposed to happen anyway. And I’ve told my older children that they will have to pay for increased premiums resulting from any accident that they cause.

Still, who can separate a teen from their phone? That wasn’t a problem for me when I was 16, because the phone cord couldn’t even reach out the door, let alone into the car! Seriously, though, while technology battles for a driver’s attention, you may be tempted to think this is a rather new phenomena. Well, you’d be wrong! “Car phones” date back to the 1960s. If you doubt my word, check out this dated photo and the accompanying article about the telecommunication industry’s plan to bring drivers and phones together. I’m glad phones have gotten a little more sophisticated, aren’t you?

My daughter is really looking forward to this process, and truth be told, so am I. While we’re out learning how to drive well, I’ll make sure that neither of us is talking or texting. Any other readers in agreement with me?

Choosing A College

These days I’m sure the postal delivery person (aka mailman) is not overly happy with us. Every day he drops off seven or eight pieces of mail from colleges. Headlines on the envelopes are written for Seth, our high school senior, trying to convince him that they know just where he should spend four years and thousands of dollars:

Truth be told, most of this mail is going into the trash can, but we can’t slow the tide down. We only hope that the mailman doesn’t mind the extra work – it is seasonal, in many ways, and eventually the offers of interest will come to an end.

Hard to believe, but our oldest son is already a junior in college. We felt his absence acutely last week as our family gathered for Thanksgiving, but are grateful that on such holidays when he can’t be home, he does have an established community there in Michigan of which he can be part. While it was three years ago, I recall some good discussions and decision-making associated with the college application process.

Back to Seth: He has a good idea of where he’d like to go next fall, but he is keeping his options open. He has dismissed some schools, is intrigued by others and is indifferent to many. I was prompted by an article in the Wall Street Journal to consider the present Fuller Family hunt for a college. I’ll admit that I’m leaving a lot of the search up to my son, but from what I can tell, there are many parents who are much more engaged in that process.

The WSJ article mentions moms who quit their jobs to make college visits with their prospective son or daughter, and others who lament how time intensive the whole application is. Really?

Maybe I’m missing something here. I don’t want to dismiss the significant expenses associated with college, but isn’t this kind of the start of a parent’s send-off? Don’t we help our kids if we point them in the right direction and then let them choose the landing spot, the place they’ll make that transition from dependence to independence?   Maybe parents who complain about college applications and such are owning too much of that process? I think we need to let go and let our kids make this decision – and live with the consequences, good or bad.

Let me know what you think, especially if you disagree with my assessment.

And for those with a high school senior, here’s a good perspective about this season of parenting from Chip Ingram, some advice from Dr. Dobson, advice for the college-bound, recollections by some parents about saying goodbye to their college-bound daughter, and information about the Focus Leadership Institute (keep it in mind for your child’s junior or senior year – a college semester spent here at Focus on the Family).

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