Many Voices Abuse Recovery

Dear Vivian,

Re; Children driving a car.................For more years than I can tell you, for more money that I would want to say, I knew that for whatever my reason I had to buy a car that had automatic changing of the seat.....I would try to explain to a car salesman that because of my back or legs or whatever else I needed to be able to move the seat up and down, quickly too.........thinking me little weird I always managed to get my cars with this feature........UPON many years of therapy, finding out my DID was busy rearranging the drivers in me, I am now a proud owner of a Honda Civic without that feature....I get in the car, at which time even though I am very much "intact" or together, I tell my children that ONLY the adults may drive the car.......no if's , and's or buts...........it works.

Dear Vivian,
How well does your child self drive a car???
Most physically small children can not drive a car because of their physical small size. Hence why we have tricycles, smaller
bikes.....
Check it out in an empty parking lot....
Is your child self in a good head space?
Is it useful to let the child self be in charge?
Children love learning stuff that involves responsibility. Children love learning what the safe rules are.
How present was your child?, How present were the other parts?...
My children have gotten good at many older people things and older parts help the younger selves have it go well for all of us.
Some of my older parts have made mistakes in cars by being less present.
There might be a sensible reason your child is in charge at the time.
You can give the children the option that the children do not drive home if the children can not drive,
but the children can still be in charge of making sure things go well for all of you.
There is a reason the child is there at the
time.
Hope this is Useful,
Anise

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When we need a child to step down, we just ask them or tell them to. This only works because they all have enough time fronting, and understand that it is important for everyone to have a turn fronting. When they are asked to step down, they know they will be able to front again another time. Make sure you give your child part enough time to front when it is safe for her to do so. That is what works for us.
Jen's

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First, how's your co-consciousness?
Can the kiddo be put in a safe place while an adult takes the wheel?
Maybe an adult can be assigned to take the little one somewhere else. It isn't fair to the kiddo to be expected to drive when he/she doesn't know how to do it.
Can the child move back when in the car to let a trained adult do the driving?

I do wish you luck, when I was early in therapy and everyone was clamoring for "Out Time", it took awhile to organize the time.
I still have a bit of trouble at the computer because the kids like to do any of the games, and are quite stubborn about getting to a place where they can win.

I am working on setting up clear but able to be screened areas inside in our house so we can see and speak and hear each other and make plans for how we want to work together.

Hi Vivian,

I've been in similar situations with my seven year old driving my car. Now if I feel she is close, I simply won't drive until she goes back inside. She likes to look out the window so I let her come out when someone (another body) is driving and we are in the passenger seat. Otherwise I now have a strict rule of no kids driving! Though my seven year old did pop out when she saw the Christmas lights this past December and I had to get her back inside really quick so I could drive home. Otherwise I would have had her pull over to the side of the road to a safe place until I was in control of the car.

Good luck.
K with J

Last year we had severe panic attacks while driving. Turns out a little kid who is afraid of everything was stuck out while we were driving. Took lots of klonopin and lots of convincing to get him to stop driving. Now we only have fear/panic driving home on the freeway at night from the Dr's(a 115-mile drive) so we come home the next day(sleeping in our van overnight) and take Propanolol before the trip.

Vivian,

We, too, made the agreement with our system along with our therapist that only parts who have taken drivers ed may drive the car. Others may also ride in front, but only experienced drivers may drive. If a child part wished to drive, another part will take them to the quiet room we have and distract them with something else they like to do. We have found it abolutely crucial to have agreements and promises like that to make our life work smoothly.

Take Care,
Karen Kelley

For us we needed a contract that we made with our therapist that littles do NOT drive, they can "watch" and "be in the front seat" but an adult HAS to do the driving! It worked really well. We needed the contract after winding up in another state with a little freaking out that the planes were going to land on the car (we were by a major airport)...she was yelling in the phone, "I'm too little to drive!" (WOW, that was a BAD day)
Thankfully they all know how to use the cell phone to contact our therapist to get us back safely!
Since the contract, only adults do the driving and it has been very successfull; that was nine years ago with no further incidents.

Vivian,

The driving thing was one of the few NO things that we did. It was wanting to be discussed with the therapist and it was still NO.

I went to the dentist once and the Nitric Oxide caused a switch. I eneded up driving into a river. I did not understand I was a multiple at the time.

When I learned to drive a standard shift I never stalled the car. That is because one of us had it all figured out before hand.

It has since worked itself out. There was a point where it was time for one to drive. They quickly got bored. I now know that they would drive at other times. Long trips mostly. If we ran into traffic than I would take over.

I have a motorcycle in the shed. I have ridden them before, that was not good. They seem to want to go fast and then I get scared and they disappear and I do not know how to ride. Spent one night riding on a train all night then sleeping under a tree. I had bought a very fast motorcycle and went to Boston to drive it home and did not know how. I ended up bringing it home on a trailer and then sold it.

Michael