<p>How is your daughter doing in the rest of her life?</p>
<p>Is she a good student, happy, normally well behaved, polite, socially acceptable?</p>
<p>I’ve had two go through the teenage years, so far.</p>
<p>The whining and excessive pestering that results when you punish too harshly makes it end up being your punishment.</p>
<p>Have her pay the ticket and give her a second chance before adding any other punishment. That’s what I would do. And lecture (they hate that).</p>
<p>“And Mini, I disagree. This is a child driving a car most probably owned by parents. The consequences for all could be severe.”</p>
<p>As I said, if there are “natural” consequences, she has to bear them. But beyond that, the point is to change behavior, not to level punishment for punishment’s sake (which is what we generally do in this culture, and it doesn’t work.) I expect fasting would do that more effectively.</p>
<p>And, as I also wrote, if you really don’t trust her, you should ask the court to revoke her license.</p>
<p>merrymom, good questions. I think we need a little more context here. Has she been in trouble before? Is she a risk-taker by nature? </p>
<p>And I do like the idea of having her call the father of the girl she was driving. That definitely would disuade most girls from trying it again.</p>
<p>My son once called 15 fathers to apologize for having an illicit party where kids brought alcohol. H had to sit next to him to steel his nerves.</p>
<p>Pretty much the worst day of son’s fifteen year old life–although all the fathers let him off the hook because they were so impressed that he ‘manned up’. </p>
<p>Never had another illicit party at my house, haha.</p>
<p>My D is actually a very sweet, kind, (formerly) responsible person, but she is extremely suseptible to peer pressure. My guess is that she felt pressured into giving her friend a ride home, (but that is obviously not a viable excuse!) She is very remorseful, and wrote me a two-page letter of apology.</p>
<p>Those of you who mentioned the violation of trust issue - that is what upsets me the most, (as well as her lack of good judgment.) Your suggestions have provided so much for me to consider. I appreciate it all.</p>
<p>My closest friend had a 16 year old who, the day she got the piece of paper, got in the car and drove 10 hours down I 95 to visit a boyfriend at college. She had never driven on a major highway before! When my friend asked for advice, I said “Take away the keys! It’s your car!” She never had any consequences. That girl is still alive too, so maybe it’s just the luck of the draw…</p>
<p>There’s always a first time for serious bad behavior if it is ever to occur. Do other parents not think this is as big as I do? It is totally understood by new drivers here in CA that they can not drive other kids. It’s practically plastered on their foreheads. To disregard this is not good.</p>
<p>The best kids need to learn hard lessons for their own good IMO. Have we lost sight that this is about how to teach them to respect society?</p>
<p>I don’t think that it’s the court’s responsibility to revoke her license. If revoking the license for 6 months is appropriate, the Court of Mom can do it just as well. My d knew that she had more to worry from me than from the law!</p>
<p>And I do have to disagree with mini - I believe that losing the privilege of driving is an appropriate and “natural” consequence of abusing that privilege. </p>
<p>If it were my d, she would lose all discretionary driving privileges for at least 6months, perhaps even the year, given how closely and how blatantly she disregarded the law. And if doing the “social” driving isn’t convenient for me at a particular moment, she’d just have to live without going. I would not allow her to drive with anyone other than me, my H or another parent.</p>
<p>The biggest issue I have is that this is the violation you know about. What violations has she been doing that you don’t know about?</p>
<p>“And I do have to disagree with mini - I believe that losing the privilege of driving is an appropriate and “natural” consequence of abusing that privilege.”</p>
<p>It is a natural consequence if and only if the court takes away the privilege. The privilege of drivers licenses is dispensed by the state, not by the parent. There is nothing that stops the parent from asking the state to revoke the privilege. Of course, if it is your car, then there is no reason you have to trust the kids with it.</p>
<p>“The best kids need to learn hard lessons for their own good IMO. Have we lost sight that this is about how to teach them to respect society?”</p>
<p>EXACTLY. And since we know pretty well that punishments on the whole are not effective, we have to find better ways of teaching. The point is to get her to act in a more trustworthy way in the future, not to punish her for water over the dam. And we shoudn’t mistake the one for the other.</p>
<p>Most teenagers don’t understand why “no driving with other kids” is such a big deal. It is a huge deal - more dangerous than speeding (IMHO). Distractions & inattention for even a few of a seconds can and are fatal. Having other kids in the car multiplies this risk with each kid. Stats in our town a few years ago showed distraction from passengers was the #1 cause of teenage accidents.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how to impress this reality to kids, but my advice is no driving without a parent for 3 (6?) months. Sure it is inconvenient for the family, but so is attending funerals. Sorry to be so mellow dramatic, but this is my hot button.</p>
<p>Top five reason teens get in accidents (from the public health dept)
<p>These were banded for the first 6 months of driving with a license on our house.</p>
<p>I’ll bite. How do you make an impression on a 16 year old?</p>
<p>I already said. Fasting. (It works, and I have seen it work with my own eyes.) Asking the court to revoke the license for three or six months (the asking is more important than that it actually happens). A thank-you note and some homebaked cookies from her to the police officer for helping keep her and her friend safe. A letter to the motor vehicles’ bureau from her, informing them of what she had done, what the consequences were, and stating that she would voluntarily inform them if she ever did anything like that again.</p>
<p>And, if it is your car, she has to earn the trust of using it back. Why should that be based on time? She may already have earned it back. Or it might take two weeks, or six months. Trust is all about relationship.</p>
<p>“My D is actually a very sweet, kind, (formerly) responsible person, but she is extremely suseptible to peer pressure. My guess is that she felt pressured into giving her friend a ride home, (but that is obviously not a viable excuse!) She is very remorseful, and wrote me a two-page letter of apology.”</p>
<p>Doing something to help someone else, even when you know it’s “wrong”. Hmmm. There by the grace of God go I.</p>
<p>I’m not minimizing the situation, especially since I really don’t know your daughter…but remorse is a very strong deterrent. Heck, remorse can be the worst punishment of all (I know in my own personal life it has been). Only you can be the judge of the impact all this has had on your daughter.</p>
<p>I have to say kids driving is the scariest thing I’ve had to deal with yet as a parent. I’d take any driving infractions very seriously. I wouldn’t blink an eye at a kid coming home with a piercing or a tattoo, but blatantly disregarding the rules of the priviledge of driving would mean the loss of that priviledge. No driving for 30 days and then 90 days of driving only with parents sounds about right to me.</p>
<p>In the state I live there is no prohibition about driving with other teens. That is what teens do.
With whom do you expect them to drive?</p>
<p>Really, if your kid is going to have a car, this is the FIRST of MANY car incidences she will have.</p>
<p>Wait until she damages the car, someone gets hurt, has multiple citations before going heavy on the punishment. Talking and discussing and reviewing the rules seems like enough if she is normally a good kid.</p>
<p>Bay, does your area have an advanced driving course like InControl or Skid School? Google “Advanced Driver Training” to find out.</p>
<p>One of the exercises they did with the kids when my d took it was to have a lead car about 2 car lengths in front and to the left of the kid’s car. The lead car was going to slam on the brakes and the kid had to stop before he/she would have hit the car if it had been directly in front. Then, a couple of the other kids & parents climbed into the car. Their job was to distract the driver, fiddle with the radio, talk, laugh, etc.</p>
<p>Not one kid was able to stop in time, even though they knew that the car was going to stop short. They really saw how little concentration they had with others in the car.</p>
<p>That impressed my d more than anything I could have said.</p>
<p>Well…I would start with no driving at all for 30 days. Then no driving at without parents for 90 days. Then I would add…she can take the school bus back and forth to school all year long. It’s free and does not involve your car. Re: other use of the car after the 90 days…I would say only for essential reasons…that would be a job. And I would also NOT permit her to ride in the cars of her teenage friends either. Yes, it’s going to be a pain for everyone.</p>
<p>In our house, a “trust violation” was always met with some restriction in freedom until enough symbolic “trust points” could be earned for the parents to be ready to again be trusting. If the offense was lying, for instance, we became a little more trusting when my s “fessed up” to something before being caught/confronted. In this instance, I suspect we would look for some evidence that the teen has begun to make responsible choices despite peer pressure. Or… we’d have her net a lot more supervised driving time before we’d trust her out with our car. Oh… and of course, any expenses would of course be hers.</p>
<p>
I agree with chevda and curiouser and jasmom (who was trying to spell out “t r u s t f u l” but was intercepted by the filter). While driving licenses are dispensed by the state, the privilege of using a parent’s car is dispensed by the parent. Your D not only broke the civil law, but she also broke her agreement with you regarding the conditions under which she could drive your car. That results in an undermining of your trust in her, a natural consequence of her inappropriate action. As a result you may no longer trust her to be responsible about the agreed-upon rules. </p>
<p>When my kids have broken a “house rule” I often had them write an essay about the situation and suggest the consequence themselves. Usually they suggested something pretty consistent with what I would have had in mind. (Perhaps they just know how I think and want to get the discussion over with efficiently.) 
Now THAT I like! GREAT idea! :)</p>
<p>“I agree with chevda and curiouser. While driving licenses are dispensed by the state, the privilege of using a parent’s car is dispensed by the parent.”</p>
<p>I think you are actually agreeing with me, not with Chedva or Curioser. I wrote TWICE that, if it is the parent’s car, she has to earn the trust of the parent back before being allowed to use it. </p>
<p>I do, however, question the hard-and-fast time restriction. She may have already earned the trust back. Or it may take two weeks. Or six months. That’s a matter of relationship, and the social consequences of damaging it, not of punishment.</p>
<p>But if you really believe there should be a “natural consequence” that should prevent her from driving, well, that’s what the court is for - whether it be in fines, traffic school, or license revocation. Driving laws exist to protect the entire community, and that’s the proper place for the natural consequences of breaking them should play out.</p>
<p>We have an entire society that has pretty much proven that “punishments” (i.e. “unnatural consequences”), don’t work. Yet, because they are around us all the time, our creativity for “teaching” has become extraordinarily stunted. We could do a heck of a lot better if only we set our hearts toward it.</p>