Every 16th of June, we pay tribute to the courageous youth of 1976, a pivotal moment in history that this year marks its 50th anniversary. These young people took charge of their own destiny when the adults around them faltered. However, we want to use this momentous occasion to invite the parents, teachers, principals, and funders, those who influence the paths children tread, to reflect quietly. When your teenager is finally ready to seize the wheel, do you remain a composed instructor in the passenger seat, or do you find yourself grappling with them for control?
Psychologist Lara Fielding describes the mind and body as a car each of us drives for life, carrying invisible “passengers”, the old hurts and fears that grab the wheel when we least expect it. Her book is written for the driver. This piece is for the person sitting beside the learner.
Here is what’s really happening, why you both keep stalling, and how to be the instructor your teenager needs.
Your Teenager is a Learner Driver
Think about how a learner actually drives. Kangaroo hops at the robot. Stalling on the hill. Indicating left, then turning right. We don’t conclude the learner is reckless. We know this is simply what learning looks like.
Now watch your teenager. The door slam, the one-word answers, the meltdown over something that looks like nothing. Those are kangaroo hops. They come from a brain still wiring itself, driving a car it has barely learned to control, carrying passengers it never chose: a humiliation in class, a friendship that soured, a comment that stuck. The swerve you see on the surface is seldom the whole story.
And a learner who gets shouted at every time they stall doesn’t learn to drive better. They learn to dread the wheel.
Two Cars at the Same Intersection
Here’s the part most of us miss in the heat of it. Your teenager isn’t the only one with passengers.
When your child slams a door, your own back seat fills up fast. The thing your father said to you at fifteen. The fear that you’re getting this parenting business wrong. The exhaustion of a long day. Before you’ve thought about it, one of your passengers has floored the accelerator, and now there are two cars, hidden passengers and all, both speeding towards the same intersection. The crash was never really about the homework.
It also helps to read which car your teenager is driving. Some go full castle: walls up, “I’m fine,” nothing gets in or out. That calm isn’t coping, it’s a fortress, and you won’t see the flood until the walls crack. Others live with the gates wide open, feeling everything, sunny like a Saturday braai one minute, then flattened by the southeaster the next. Misreading the castle kid as “fine,” or the village kid as “just being dramatic,” is exactly how well-meaning adults get it wrong.
Be the Instructor, Not a Second Driver
A good driving instructor does three things, and none of them is grabbing the wheel at every wobble.
Check your own dashboard first. Before you respond, notice your own reaction. The raised voice is usually your passenger talking, not your parenting. You put your own oxygen mask on before helping with theirs.
Read the stall, not just the swerve. When your teen snaps or shuts down, ask what just grabbed their wheel rather than only punishing the swerve. “You’re being rude” ends the conversation. “Something’s clearly got to you” opens the bonnet.
Separate the fact from the story, about them. Fact: “She didn’t do her homework.” Story: “She’s lazy and heading for trouble.” The fact is small and fixable. The story is about your passenger driving, and your teenager can feel it the moment they take the wheel.
Then do the hardest thing of all: let them drive. An instructor who never lets the learner feel the road raises someone who can’t drive alone. You step in when it’s genuinely dangerous, not every time the car wobbles.
The Handover
The young people of 1976 took the wheel because someone, somewhere, had built enough in them to dare it. That is the job. Not to drive the car for our children, and not to white-knuckle the wheel beside them, but to sit calmly in the passenger seat long enough that one day they can pull off without us.
This Youth Month, try one thing. The next time you and your teenager are heading for that intersection, check your own dashboard before you check theirs. Ask yourself: is this me parenting, or is this my passenger driving?
The handover is coming either way. The only question is whether you taught them to steer or to fear the wheel. #TeenParenting #YouthMonth #CalmInstructor #ParentingTips #SupportTeens #EmotionalIntelligence #LearningToDrive #ParentingAdvice #ConnectingWithTeens #EmpowerYouth #NavigatingAdolescence #UnderstandingTeenagers #MindfulParenting