My Son Is a Catastrophe. Now He Wants to Drive.
I have a 15-year-old son, “Clyde.” His birthday is in a few months, and he’s very much looking forward to getting his learner’s permit and starting to drive. I have serious safety concerns about this, and not just normal “teen learning to drive for the first time” concerns. Clyde is the most accident-prone person I know and shows a shocking degree of carelessness that makes me fear for the safety of everyone around should he get behind the wheel.
Clyde has, for years, tried to catch birds on the wing by simply leaping at a bird flying overhead or passing by and grabbing. It has never worked, although he has managed some nasty falls from the practice. He has been taken out of his school’s woodshop program after repeated incidents involving saws and he has quite a few scars on his hands and wrists from them. They can’t take him out of his science courses, so he partners with his teacher’s assistant for all lab work that involves open flames. He has started four kitchen fires in the last year alone. He can remember that he shouldn’t put metal in the microwave or plastic in the toaster oven, but somehow which one was which managed to elude him even after my wife put up notices on each. On the last one, he tried to retrieve his pop-tart from the toaster oven, still encased in its plastic wrapping, by simply reaching in and grabbing for it, setting his shirt and himself on fire and netting him a trip to the emergency room when we managed to douse him.
We have checked him repeatedly for learning disabilities, other structural issues, or neurodivergence. He does have ADHD, which he takes medication for, but in the words of his lead doctor “Concerning behavior referenced is not consistent with symptomology of his diagnosis” and that he was probably just like this. We’ve tried to be supportive of him, but often time support involves keeping him away from things that can burn, cut, or break, because he will find some way to hurt himself on it if left to his own devices.
Which brings us back to the automobile. Putting him behind tons of rapidly moving metal is too easy to imagine ending in disaster. But he really does want to drive, all of his friends either have learner’s permits or are looking forward to getting them, it is developmentally appropriate. And of course, if he can’t actually drive a car in the U.S., he’s severely disabled in his ability to move around independently. At the same time, I can’t shake the conviction that he’ll kill himself and/or others within an hour of getting behind the wheel. What can I do here?
—Reluctant Bubble Wrapper
https://slate.com/human-interest/2024/01/son-hazard-driving-parenting-advice.html
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