Nervous about your teenager getting behind the wheel?
It’s almost as if you can’t say ‘teens’ and ‘driving’ in the same sentence without including the word ‘accidents,’ too.
According to Dr. Robert Myers, a clinical child psychologist who works with children with ADHD (and whose own son has ADHD), 20% of fatal speed-related accidents on the road are caused by children between 15-19 years of age.
In many states, teens can get their driver’s licenses at 16 years old. Take a rebellious and stubborn teen who’s trying to figure out who he or she is, and add a car to that equation. What do you get?
Then take a teen with ADHD or ADD and add a car. The result? Four times as many accidents. That, to me, is a really scary thought.
Myers adds that “in their first 2 to 5 years of driving, teens with ADHD or ADD…are more likely to cuase bodily injury in accidents, and have 3 times as many citations for speeding as young drivers without ADHD.”
As a parent, what can you do? Here’s a quick but hard solution:
If your teen has ADHD or ADD, you might want to make some tough decisions like have your teen wait 2 or 3 years after the legal driving age before getting his or her driver’s license. Why?
“…keep in mind that developmentally, your teen with ADHD or ADD may be 2 to 3 years behind his peers in terms of brain development,” says Myers.
So, a 13 year old on the road? That’s something I wouldn’t allow. Would you?
Your ADHD Teenager And The Car [Empowering Parents]
