How To Cope With Your Teens First Car Accident

What an incredibly exciting moment it is when your teen passes their driving exam and you realize that you will no longer carry the title of ‘cab mom’, along with your long list of many others. It is a celebration to be had not just for you, but mostly for them. They now finally have their independence that they so desire and are free to create their own schedule, which doesn’t rely on yours.

But what happens when this great news leads to horrifying circumstances? Here are the three important steps to take when your teen has their first car accident.

Don’t Blame Them

This might be hard since it could be your hard-earned cash that went into buying them their first car and after all it’s you that is being kept awake weeks on end by nightmares of darker outcomes.

Nevertheless, we all know that as a parent, blaming gets you nowhere and could even make the situation worse by creating a barrier between you and your teen that will prevent them from coming to you with future problems. A good habit to commit to is making sure the first thing you do, when such a situation arises, is to remind them of how much you care about them and their safety.

Once you have found out that they are safe, with hopefully only minor injuries, let them know that you are on your way to find them and once you arrive, you can talk through the incident and how to solve the issues. But if they have more serious injuries, you may want to consider hiring a car accident attorney.

Encourage Them To Give a True Account

It might be useful for your attorney to see evidence of the car accident to help them form an idea of who, out of either driver involved, is to blame. At Horst Shewmaker, they advise you to photograph the damage made to the cars as thoroughly as possible to help your teen in their case later on. This should be done only if the road conditions allow, and it is safe to do so for the driver.

Secondly, it is important to remind your teen to give a true account of the incident to any police and medical professionals at the scene and to save any conversations with car insurance companies for another day.

Take the Incident as a Lesson for You Both

There are a lot of lessons to take away from a car accident and this will be their first time in dealing with all of the administration that surrounds it so, along with your help, make sure they do most of the work. This will help them to become a more responsible adult and one that can take care of their own mistakes in future scenarios.

Secondly, ensure that you give them a good old revision session on car and road safety; who knows, they might take it more seriously this time.

If at some point all the excitement of becoming a new driver ends in tears for your teen, be sure to support them and talk them through the steps that they are to take from here. Remember that there are lessons to be taken away from every mistake, especially those hazardous to our health and safety.