February 22nd, 2010 by Lisa Warner

Is fear stopping us teaching our children life skills?

Hold onto your hats parents, brace yourself, because amongst everything else you have to worry about we now learn that teaching our children life skills early is a bad thing!

A BBC news article got my attention this week and I don’t think I have read anything so pointless for a long time. After reading the headline I was intrigued, not because children aged 11 were taking driving lessons but someone was fearful about it!

Now let’s get this straight, we are not talking about children whizzing round the roads where you live, reinacting their latest video driving game in real life. They are simply having the opportunity to learn driving skills on private land before the age where they are allowed on public roads.

OK, so let’s not panic too much, kids who live on farms and large private estates have been having this opportunity for decades.

But there must be some evidence that this bad thing, surely! Well, this fear generating article points to a Swedish study that er, actually shows that allowing young people to practise at an earlier age has reduced accidents by 40%.

Alright then, what are the experts are saying – Kim Stanton, from Young Driver, said: “We are teaching youngsters the vital skills they are going to need in later life to drive.

“We believe these skills will stay with them, and learning at this age, when they are very keen to absorb and retain a lot of what we teach them, will definitely make them safer drivers.”

But Insp Alan Jones, from the Police Federation of England and Wales says it doesn’t replicate the real world and spontaneous incidents and Rospa thinks it will make young people too confident and more likely to crash.

Does Alan Jones really think that someone who had a couple of lessons at the age of 15 will jump into a car at the age of 17 and pass their test immediately. Is he calling into question the driving standard agency, does he think driving examiners would not be able to spot someone who has no experience of negotiating traffic and responding to spontaneous incidents! And if Rospa seriously want to reduce the casualties amongst young drivers perhaps they should be checking out the Swedish research.

I am really cross with the BBC for scare mongering. Parents do have stuff to worry about – what about the fact that solvent abuse kills more under 16’s than all illegal drugs put together or what about that 80% of young people lose their virginity whilst under the influence of alcohol. This is the scary stuff we need to be addressing!

Come on, get a grip, we do have things to worry about in society but children confidently learning skills that are going to help them in life isn’t one of them.

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