I just let the kids watch Gever Tulley’s video 5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kid Do. One of them is driving your car.
Immediately Aidan, our 5 year old, asked if he could drive my car tomorrow. I said no, maybe on Saturday, though. Right away he went off to Teresa and told her that Daddy had said that he could drive the car on Saturday.
When that statement was greeted with a somewhat strained silence, he added with great assurance: “it’s perfectly illegal!”
Here’s the video. Enjoy!
[ update August 21 ]
So I did it – I let Aidan (5) and Ethan (8) drive my Mini. Kind of gave my heart a good workout.
I found a nice parking lot, let them sit in the driver’s seat (I actually had to sit behind them) and drive the car. Ethan freaked me out when he pushed the gas pedal hard, but fortunately we were still in Park. Of course, they loved it, and maybe we’ll try it again sometime … in a decade or so.
Glad to hear the talk inspired a fun adventure! Ethan’s stomp on the gas pedal is common, especially at that age. I often hear from parents about that very moment when they thought they had explained everything perfectly and then… stomp! I think that this is an example of “dramatic conditioning” (a term I recently learned) – which describes how the behavior we see in movies and on television shapes our internal model of the world. People in movies are always stomping on the gas pedal, so kids begin to think that that’s how you make cars go.
I look forward to hearing how it goes with the pocket knife and fire experiments!