Positive driver training

As those of you know who follow my other blog as well as being a driving instructor and training instructors I also love training dogs.
I was having a think about how the two things are linked and I have seen a really good link

Dogs who find working with you rewarding want to work with you and learn things. If mistakes are made it is because YOU have not trained it as well as you should.
Either the dog does not understand what you want, or you have rushed them too fast into a situation they cannot cope with.

Same with pupils
In general the people in your car are there because they really want to learn to drive and they are paying you good money for the lessons
- of course there are a few who want to mess about, but even some of them might be doing it cos of nerves or bravado.
So if they are making a mistake you should be IAR'ing yourself as well as the pupil

Sure, sometimes people have bad days and things just go wrong - or they can forget something once - no big deal
But, have you pushed them too quickly into busy traffic?
Have you progressed to quickly from prompting to independent??

Far too often I hear of instructors who yell at pupils or worse still hit them
But in reality it is more likely the instructors fault.

For example I was speaking to a trainee who was telling me his pupil was often forgetting her mirrors before changing gear on busy roads.
They were both getting frustrated with the situation and feeling they were not making progress.
He was constantly pulling her up AFTER the event and saying something along the lines of
'Again you forgot to check your mirrors, why?, what could happen? what are we going to do next time?' So she had a whole lesson where she felt she was constantly doing things wrong

Now I know it sounds like and easy solution, prompt, prompt, prompt, before she is going to change gear 'what you checking?' then she wouldnt get it wrong and would start practasing the correct thing.
But
Digging deeper there was even more too it. She had only had 3 lessons and was not confident at all. All that scary traffic around she just didnt want to take her eyes off the road.

So the solution is 2 fold, get back to the quiet roads so she has a chance to build her confidence and practise the right things in comfort and prompt.

Remember practise makes perfect, so practise the wrong things - like forgetting a mirror and then you have a bad habit to reteach.

In summary
Mistakes are more often the instructors fault and not the pupils, try and figure out why.