<p>I am okay with that. Let him learn driving and get his license when he feels like it. But a friend of mine warned me of possible ridiculing by peers when he gets to college. How do your kids do? Do they all have DL by the time they are in college? S is a Senior in HS and says most of his classmates don’t have it yet. Do you think I should put some pressure on him and get DL before he starts college? </p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>He’s a big boy, and will be an even bigger boy in college. I think he can handle getting teased by peers because he doesn’t have his DL. IMHO, I think this is outside the bounds of what a mother should be worrying about.</p>
<p>I am turning nineteen in february, and just got my permit a few months ago. Whether your son chooses to drive or not is up to him, but why not get a license???</p>
<p>My 20 yo son still doesn’t have his license. The one thing I do recommend is to get a non-driver’s license. It’s a govt-issued card, obtained through the DMV. It’s helpful to have this for airport-security, so he doesn’t have to travel with his passport.</p>
<p>Consider having him get a permit. </p>
<p>In our case (maybe same for everybody) there is no extra insurance cost for having a permit. Over time have him get more practice hours. But don’t add the expense (a lot for teen boys!) and stress of a license until he is ready and it is needed.</p>
<p>But a friend of mine warned me of possible ridiculing by peers when he gets to college.
My oldest didnt get her license till I am not sure when- she may have graduated college.( she is 28) Still doesnt have a car. ( i bought myself a car when I was 17)</p>
<p>Youngest is 20- she has a bike ( that is too big) no license, no car.</p>
<p>Its good to have a license but hard to find time to practice.</p>
<p>Consider yourself lucky. I’m teaching my kid to drive and it’s the most terrifying thing I’ve done in a long time. I actually taught all my sisters to drive when I was a teenager, but now I actually care about survival and my insurance rates.</p>
<p>Seriously, my kid is almost 19. If he doesn’t need it there’s really no rush. Bascially up to him to get himself where he needs to go.</p>
<p>I took my road test the week before I turned 18. I wasn’t ready before that. I went through drivers ed and got my permit at 16 but I just was not ready, I was too scared. It wasn’t until I was a little more grown up that I was prepared to retain any of the information anyway. I have a friend who is a college senior who still doesn’t have her license and we tease her a little here and there, but nobody legitimately makes fun of her or thinks less of her and she knows that. That would be silly. Driving isn’t that big of a deal. When you need to learn and you’re ready, you do. If you’re not ready, I don’t want you on the road with me anyway, I am sure as heck not going to pressure you.</p>
<p>My S was pretty decent with learning to drive and getting his license before graduating HS. Of course, this being CA, there’s more incentive to do so. We just wanted him to have some driving experience under his belt before he left for college.</p>
<p>Yeah, I found it rather nerve wracking to help him with his permit hours. I said if the only job I could have would be as a driving instructor, I would either be unemployed or employed with major league ulcers.</p>
<p>Daughter is 17, a h.s. senior, and not interested in getting her license at this point. Her logic? Right now, she can walk/catch a ride to where she wants to go locally, and we don’t have the option of giving her her own car, in college having a car is a pain, and when she graduates, she plans to move to NYC, where a car is a liability. We’ve watched some of her friends get their licenses because “it’s what you do” at 16…and they’re not the most confident/interested drivers. </p>
<p>The way I figure it, like Emaheevul07 wrote “When you need to learn and you’re ready, you do.” My sister got her license at about 22, when she graduated nurses’ school and decided it was time, and my niece, now 20, has decided to stop the process for now, as every time a car comes toward her or there’s a curve, she’s realized she closes her eyes…not ready. When my kiddo is ready, she’ll learn. Yours, too.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for the comments.</p>
<p>I know I said DL. But he didn’t even get his permit, not interested in learning to drive either. Sometimes that worries me. But I guess I would be more worried when he actually starts driving. </p>
<p>Perhaps he is enjoying mommy driving him everywhere he needs to go. <<chuckles>> </chuckles></p>
<p>Anyway, I will let him take his time.</p>
<p>
Yes, he has the state id.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t worry about ridicule from peers as a reason to get a driver’s license. </p>
<p>I’ll admit that I’ve been intrigued by teens that don’t want one though! It is so foreign from my experience. I recall being a teen and could not wait to get it. Where I grew up, you had to be 17 to get a permit and then very soon after that, while 17, I got a license. </p>
<p>Where we live, the permit is at age 15 which my kids obtained on their 15th birthday. Then, after one year of practice driving (documented hours) and driver’s ed, they got their licenses at 16. I mean they were chomping at the bit to do that. Being able to drive was a “grown up” sort of thing and a measure of some independence. All their friends drove. Also, where we live, which is rural, one needs a car to do ANYTHING…cannot walk to anything and there is no public transportation. </p>
<p>I recall in my D2’s last year of high school (she graduated early and turned 16 in the fall of her last year of HS), she had a boyfriend about the same age (he was a few months older than her). She could drive and he could not. He went to the same high school but lived about 30 miles from our house. I thought it was really odd that he did not want to get a license. She drove. I believe when he hit college (18), he eventually got a license, but he was very unusual among her set of friends to not get it when he was eligible to do so. </p>
<p>I would not make my kid get a license if he did not want to. I’d find out why he didn’t want to though. There are many advantages to having one. There are few disadvantages (well, except, safety…my D was in a very serious crash at age 16 but survived, though was badly injured). My other D has done a great deal of driving. When she was 18, for example, she drove 6,000 miles from Vermont to Alaska!</p>
<p>On top of not being ready, there was no car for me to drive and my friends all already had cars and licenses anyway. So for me, it just wasn’t worth the stress. I do think one should get a license when they are emotionally ready should an emergency arise where you have to drive (I have driven sick and/or drunk friends home in their cars before), but I also live in an area with no public transportation.</p>
<p>My D got her license at 17. Had a fender bender about 3 months later, and honestly has no desire to drive anymore. She’s thrilled to be at a school where driving is unnecessary. I predict she will never return to soCal where she has to drive. She hates it, and now when she’s home we end up driving her anyway–she’s just not comfortable with it. So, if your S isn’t driving–so much the better. No worries about accidents, no gigantic insurance bills. Personally, if I never had to drive again, I’d be fine–and I got my license on my 16th birthday! So relax and enjoy the benefits of no teenage driving! He’ll figure it out when he needs to.</p>
<p>My D also feels in no hurry to drive…in fact is apprehensive, and we’ve had a minor stressful occurrence during practice driving that has given her cold feet. She’s a senior, will be 18 in spring. We’re going to try again then and over summer. It’s not necessary that she drive right now, but I do want her to have her license, some experience, and a comfort level with driving before leaving for college. I think not knowing how to drive can put one at a disadvantage in some situations.</p>
<p>One thing I’d caution him about is that it’s rather hard to find the time to practice driving once you’re in college. He may have things he wants to do over the summers (research, internship, whatever) that prevent him from using that time to learn. During the year is possible depending on the school, but he may not want to take time out of his academics to learn. This is a trap I fell into and now I’m facing graduating college with no license, which is potentially problematic depending on where I go to grad school. </p>
<p>I’ve gotten made fun of about it, but only by friends, so I don’t really mind. It is pretty ridiculous. I tell people about it though; I imagine if your son doesn’t want people to know they probably won’t find out. Lots of people don’t have cars and he can just claim he’s not comfortable driving other people’s cars if that situation comes up.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t think the ridiculing would be a big issue at college since so many college students don’t have cars while in college whether they have a DL or not.</p>
<p>I happen to think it’s a good idea to learn to drive while younger - preferably while in HS. It gives them a chance to practice driving on familiar roads the shorter distances to the nearby HS and nearby friends’ houses, shopping, etc. before being forced into a situation where he needs to go from no experience to possibly longer distance and more dangerous driving to get to a job as can happen when getting the DL later.</p>
<p>I also think it’s weird that many kids nowadays, especially boys, seem to have little interest in driving. I hear of a lot of them nowadays of this mindset but when I turned 16 I think most people were itching to get their DL. I got mine on the earliest day I possibly could. To me the DL was freedom. It also was a handy accessory to go out on dates with. ;)</p>
<p>Both my kids have learner’s permits, but neither got around to getting a license before college. One is a freshman and one a junior. At least it’s saving me money on insurance. I didn’t get my license until the summer after I graduated from college. I had to learn in a hurry since I’d gotten a grant to drive around the country for the next year photographing fire stations!</p>
<p>OP: My D reluctantly got her permit at around 16-1/2. There were a couple of fatal accidents involving high schoolers around that time, so she really didn’t want to drive and only got the permit because she felt it was expected. During the year she had the permit, she drove only seldom, and only under duress. At the end of the year, she refused to take the license exam. I didn’t push it because I figured that forcing someone to drive who had as little confidence as she did was asking for trouble. So she did go to college without a license.</p>
<p>She had a really rough freshman year; she was dreadfully homesick and basically just wasn’t ready to leave the nest. About mid-year, she told me that she thought one of her problems was that she never got her license. She said (paraphrasing) that she had skipped one of the steps into adulthood that virtually all of her peers had taken. She felt that in some way, she was held back by not having the ability and independence that the license represents. To my knowledge, she was never ridiculed at college; it was an internal feeling of inadequacy.</p>
<p>My son has had his license since June (he turned 17 at the end of August.) There is no way I would let him go to college without knowing how to drive. </p>
<p>He already got his first accident under his belt - a minor fender bender but it showed him how much power an automobile has even when only going 10 miles and hour and how much damage even at that speed there can be. </p>
<p>But the poor kid - a little more than a week later (just last Tuesday) in my car he was rear ended by a women rushing home because, “her kid was threatening to hurt himself.” He was idling in line at a green light waiting for a car in front of him to make a left when she just barreled into him. She was so distraught when they pulled over he just got her name and number. The husband called me a while later and said they were dealing with a family crisis but they would take care of any damage. He called me yesterday and asked me if I’d get an estimate so that is on today’s agenda.</p>