Parents, we all know that no matter how we try to keep our children from growing up, the time will eventually come that they begin to make it out on their own.
Possibly the biggest step they take while still under your care is getting their driver’s license, and while they’re ecstatic to learn how to drive, you’re a nervous wreck.
Not only do you have to worry about them being out there on their own, but you have to worry about getting them a driving education that will benefit the both of you by making sure they are driving safely.
This can be difficult, especially when you have your own schedule to keep. We know; you live a busy life that doesn’t always allow the time to take them to driving school and wait for them to get out.
Some schools offer it, but the quality of those lessons varies from school to school, and it may not be the best learning environment for your child. I certainly know mine wasn’t helpful.
What Can a Busy Parent Do?
Enter online drivers education: the perfect way to get your teenager the driving education they need at a price you can afford, on the schedule you need, with quality you both deserve.
Now, you may be thinking that an online driver’s ed class could never beat a personal, in-class experience. In some cases, you may be correct; after all, with in-class driver training, they get face-to-face interaction with the instructor and other new drivers.
They also get to experience the learning curve with other teens just like them, and actually learn WITH them. They also get to hear answers to questions that they might not have thought of.
There is a downside to this, however; you run the risk of a distracting learning environment due to students not taking the class seriously. And since everyone learns differently and at different paces, you run the risk of your child falling behind or even feeling rushed or discouraged if they aren’t keeping up.
Or, alternately, they may be bored if the rest of the class isn’t picking it up as quickly as they are, leading to them not paying as much attention in class as they should.
So why should you choose online drivers education? Below are a few reasons you might want to consider signing your teen up for an online drivers ed course.
Preparation
While it is a requirement in most states to clock a certain amount of supervised hours behind the wheel before presenting you with your license or learner’s permit, online driving classes help prepare you for anything and everything you might run into out there.
This can be extremely helpful for teens who may be nervous about their first driving experience. Nothing takes away the anxiety of getting behind the wheel for the first time, of course. But knowing what to expect can be helpful. It can make them more comfortable and less likely to make panicked movements and decisions while driving.
Most online driver’s ed courses cover everything from the safety regulations of the road, to signs and their meanings, to the driver, to even the vehicle. Most of them also touch on topics such as how to keep an eye out for other drivers and how to handle different road conditions.
Bottom line is, the more prepared your child feels, the more comfortable they’ll be.
Fewer Distractions
We already covered that students can sometimes be disruptive if they aren’t taking the curriculum seriously, but they can be a distraction in other ways as well.
They may ask too many questions or lead the instructor off-topic, they may drive recklessly during practice, or if a group of friends is in the class together, they may talk during the lesson, causing a distraction to other students.
With online driver’s ed, the student has the opportunity to go into a room by themselves and focus on the material and soak in as much information as they can to get ready for their tests.
Learning Their Way
As well as a distraction-free environment, online drivers ed courses allow the student to learn at their own pace, giving them the freedom to cover the material in a way which makes them most comfortable.
Most online courses are broken up into sections, allowing your teen to cover the material as many times as they need to in order to learn and understand every aspect of safe driving, and have mini tests at the end of each section leading up to the final test to ensure they are confident when completing the final part of their driver’s ed course.
If they need a break, because let’s face it, driver’s education in any form is still kind of boring, they can easily save their progress within the course to come back to at a later time, and pick up right where they left off.
Fun, Engaging, and Interactive Content
In addition to the flexibility, online courses offer students a fresher and more modern approach to teaching. As lessons are done online, more visual resources are added to the course material to keep students engaged throughout. These mostly include videos and animations, while more advanced platforms even include access to mobile app games and 3D driving simulations.
They’ll also find a variety of course options available so they have more freedom to choose how they want to learn. Do they prefer the online video course offered by iDriveSafely or its more straightforward text-based course? Do they want to have fun while learning? Perhaps MyImprov Traffic School’s course is what they are looking for.
What I mean is, each student has their own way of learning, and not everyone actually retains information through class recitations and surprise quizzes that traditional classroom learning often utilize. With an online driver’s ed course, your teens will be able to choose a course that fits their learning style, which in turn will only encourage them more to study on their own.
Higher Retention Rate
This next item stems from the previous one – a higher retention rate is expected if students take online driver’s ed as compared to taking the course from a traditional in-classroom setup. Studies have proven that visual learning produced better recall than other learning types.
Online courses are designed in such a way that students will not lose interest as they go along the course – that’s why most are expected to be fun and filled with interactive resources such as videos, animations, and games/quizzes.
These help students engage with the lesson, and such emotional reactions are found to influence information retention, thus leading to a higher retention rate.
Cater To Your Schedule
Gone are the days where you have to scramble to get your teenager to driving school while also making it to work or cancelling appointments to take them and wait for them to get out of class.
In enrolling your child in online drivers ed, they can complete the courses within the comfort of your own home, while also clocking their practice hours if you need to go somewhere.
It’s a win-win! You don’t have to alter your schedule, and you don’t have to drive anywhere. Personally, that sounds great to me, how about you?
State Approved
Possibly the best news of all when it comes to online drivers ed courses is that most of them are approved by the state you live in, so there’s no need to worry about whether you’re paying for nothing.
The sites that offer driving courses make it incredibly easy to find out if they are available and credible in your state, and if for some reason you’re still not sure, you can contact the DMV and they’ll provide you with a list of online schools that are viable.
With most online driver’s ed sites, once you finish the course, they allow you to either print the completion certificate, or they send the information straight to your local DMV to show that the course has been completed in full, and the student is ready to get their very own driver’s license! Yes, it’s that easy.