My 16 year old daughter is old enough to learn how to drive and in her first week of driving school, she drove right through our garage door while I was in the car with her.

It is a good thing that we had insurance on both the car and the garage, although my husband and I did not think we would need it for our teenage driver quite so soon.  She hadn't even started driving by herself yet. 

Where we live in Ohio, teenagers must be 16, have attended driving school, had driving instruction, and have driven with an adult for 50 hours before they can take the driving test to get their driver's liscense.  I can already feel the hair turning gray in my head as I think about my daughter driving on her own.

I am not sure if the thought of my teenage daughter driving my car is scarier or the thought of my teenage daughter driving my car amongst other people is scarier. I do know that I am totally not ready to admit that my teenage daughter is old enough to drive, and that I will let her get behind my steering wheel to drive my car.

Those scary thoughts are not stopping my teenager from growing older nor from driving. She has now completed her verbal driving instruction for her driving school, and  is in the next phase where a driving instructor takes her out and drives with her. She has already had two actual driving lessions with her very brave instructor.

It seems like raising a teenager is frought with expense and worry.  When my husband and I found out how much it would cost to add our teenage daughter to our insurance policy, we almost fell over in shock.  When we add that to the additional stress that having a teenage driver in the family adds, I admire my parents even more for raising three of us.

This week will be the last two of the four two hours driving lessons with a driving instructor.  Then I will have to get back in the car with her and let her drive me around at least until she gets in her 50 hours of driving time.  She only managed to destroy one of our garage doors with the last accident, there is still one more left that she hasn't gotten yet. 

Hopefully, the next time she drives through our garage, it will be my husband in the passenger seat.  In my car though, because the damage is already there.  We still haven't finished fixing the car.