Driving

Hi would any of mind me asking as parent, how you coped with learning to drive?  My daughter is almost old enough now and I am thinking an automatic car would be easier for her.  She struggles with limb strength for the pedals and may not manage the multitasking of pedals and gears in a manual car.  I would love her to learn as she loves listening to music in my car whilst we go for a drive.  And I feel independence to do this would be so good for her.  At the same time I don’t want to suggest driving it’s just going to end up making her feel worse about herself.  

Hi would any of mind me asking as parent, how you coped with learning to drive?  My daughter is almost old enough now and I am thinking an automatic car would be easier for her.  She struggles with limb strength for the pedals and may not manage the multitasking of pedals and gears in a manual car.  I would love her to learn as she loves listening to music in my car whilst we go for a drive.  And I feel independence to do this would be so good for her.  At the same time I don’t want to suggest driving it’s just going to end up making her feel worse about herself.  

Automatic restricts you to an automatic car (generally a little bit more expensive) but would make learning an order of magnitude easier. You can always do another test for a manual transmission car later on if needed though and I'd imagine learning in stages might actually be easier than having to deal with it all at once. Electric cars are automatic anyway, so looks like manual transmission will be a thing of the past, possibly in a couple of decades.

It took me ages to learn to drive because I was only doing one lesson a week for an hour and I learn best when left to it, I'm not great with instructions especially not having to take them in whilst driving (which wasn't all muscle memory then). I also had a lot of anxiety about it, found the whole thing very stressful.

Having my own car was great for being able to get about but also for having some space I could be completely on my own, listening to music etc with no body to complain or pester me and obviously it made things a lot easier employment wise. Definitely worth the hassle.

The instructor can make all the difference too. It'd be worth looking for personal recommendations.