Help! I'm Stuck in My Own Personal Groundhog Day!
Which is harder: potty training your toddler or teaching your teenager how to drive?
I hated potty training. I know it's not a favorite thing for most parents, but I had such rosy expectations and such a miserable experience the first time (i.e. M) that I was tempted with the next four to just let them wear diapers until school. In fact, I was so scarred (and I think M was too) by the potty training nightmare that with the rest of the kids I threw out all the expectations and 1) waited until the kids were at least 3 and a half before even giving it a shot and 2) going at it slowly. None of this "potty training in a week" stuff. It went much better with the rest of the kids. Still, it was miserable enough that I think that one of the happiest days of my parenting life was when I realized that I could consider S well and truly done with diapers.
So how is this like teaching your kid to drive?
Well, I'll admit from the first I was just as insanely eager to have another driver in the house that it was probably only rivaled by my insane eagerness to have my oldest potty trained. The trouble was that like with potty training (I first jumped in with M when she was 18 months old, with some program that was "guaranteed to work"-- hah!!!) M had ZERO interest in what I wanted her to learn. Apparently, M would be happy to go the rest of her life with someone else chauffeuring her around. The second problem was that her father-- partly because he is a cop who has taken way too many accidents over the years and partly because he didn't get a driver's license until he was 23-- was also not in favor of teaching the teenager how to drive. So he pretty much said straight up-- if you want her to drive, it's all on YOU.
But I'm desperate. I need another driver. Just like I got pretty desperate with M and the potty training, because I was staring down the probability of three kids in diapers at the same time.
So I pulled out the big guns. I set a deadline and told M that she had to get her driver's permit by that date or she would lose her phone. It worked-- she actually studied (while grumbling the whole time) and passed the permit test with flying colors when I took her in. And I tried to learn from the potty training lesson and we started off gradually, no more driving lessons than 15 minutes a time, 3 times a week. And she complained EVERY SINGLE TIME.
It is now eight months later and she has finally worked her way up to being able to drive to church Sunday mornings and make the drive home from the high school-- as long as it isn't the full drive home that includes picking up the younger kids from their charter (because the road home from that includes a nightmare of a traffic situation). She still complains EVERY SINGLE TIME I make her drive. She has never asked to drive voluntarily. Not once.
And I still have the experience of my blood pressure shooting sky high and praying that we aren't going to die or at least wreck the car every single time.
She is nowhere near being ready for the driver's test. Which is just as well because I do not yet know how we'd foot the insurance bill. But oh my gosh, will this stage of teenage driver purgatory last forever?
When will it end?
(And then I remember I have five kids, and J will be old enough to get a permit at the end of this year. . . . it never is going to end. YIKES!!!!)
I hated potty training. I know it's not a favorite thing for most parents, but I had such rosy expectations and such a miserable experience the first time (i.e. M) that I was tempted with the next four to just let them wear diapers until school. In fact, I was so scarred (and I think M was too) by the potty training nightmare that with the rest of the kids I threw out all the expectations and 1) waited until the kids were at least 3 and a half before even giving it a shot and 2) going at it slowly. None of this "potty training in a week" stuff. It went much better with the rest of the kids. Still, it was miserable enough that I think that one of the happiest days of my parenting life was when I realized that I could consider S well and truly done with diapers.
So how is this like teaching your kid to drive?
Well, I'll admit from the first I was just as insanely eager to have another driver in the house that it was probably only rivaled by my insane eagerness to have my oldest potty trained. The trouble was that like with potty training (I first jumped in with M when she was 18 months old, with some program that was "guaranteed to work"-- hah!!!) M had ZERO interest in what I wanted her to learn. Apparently, M would be happy to go the rest of her life with someone else chauffeuring her around. The second problem was that her father-- partly because he is a cop who has taken way too many accidents over the years and partly because he didn't get a driver's license until he was 23-- was also not in favor of teaching the teenager how to drive. So he pretty much said straight up-- if you want her to drive, it's all on YOU.
But I'm desperate. I need another driver. Just like I got pretty desperate with M and the potty training, because I was staring down the probability of three kids in diapers at the same time.
So I pulled out the big guns. I set a deadline and told M that she had to get her driver's permit by that date or she would lose her phone. It worked-- she actually studied (while grumbling the whole time) and passed the permit test with flying colors when I took her in. And I tried to learn from the potty training lesson and we started off gradually, no more driving lessons than 15 minutes a time, 3 times a week. And she complained EVERY SINGLE TIME.
It is now eight months later and she has finally worked her way up to being able to drive to church Sunday mornings and make the drive home from the high school-- as long as it isn't the full drive home that includes picking up the younger kids from their charter (because the road home from that includes a nightmare of a traffic situation). She still complains EVERY SINGLE TIME I make her drive. She has never asked to drive voluntarily. Not once.
And I still have the experience of my blood pressure shooting sky high and praying that we aren't going to die or at least wreck the car every single time.
She is nowhere near being ready for the driver's test. Which is just as well because I do not yet know how we'd foot the insurance bill. But oh my gosh, will this stage of teenage driver purgatory last forever?
When will it end?
(And then I remember I have five kids, and J will be old enough to get a permit at the end of this year. . . . it never is going to end. YIKES!!!!)
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