Many parents consider teaching their teen to drive themselves. It seems straightforward enough — you learned to drive, you have years of experience, and you could save some money in the process. While parent practice is incredibly valuable, here is why professional driving instruction provides real advantages — and why the best approach actually combines both.
Understanding the differences between professional driving lessons and parent-taught driving will help you make the best decision for your teen’s safety and long-term success on the road. Whether you’re weighing the cost, the quality of instruction, or the legal requirements in Virginia, this guide covers everything you need to know.
The Benefits of Professional Driving Instruction
Professional driving lessons offer several advantages that are difficult to replicate at home, no matter how experienced you are behind the wheel.
A Structured, Proven Curriculum
Professional driving schools like Abba Driving School follow a carefully designed curriculum that covers every skill a new driver needs — from basic vehicle control to advanced defensive driving techniques. Each lesson builds on the previous one, so your teen develops skills in the proper order. Parent-taught driving tends to be more ad hoc, often skipping foundational skills or teaching them out of sequence.
DMV-Certified Instructors
Our instructors are certified by the Virginia DMV and undergo rigorous training in both driving technique and teaching methodology. They know how to communicate effectively with new drivers, break down complicated maneuvers into manageable steps, and adapt their teaching style to each student’s pace. Being a good driver doesn’t automatically make someone a good driving teacher — these are two very different skill sets.
Dual-Control Vehicles for Safety
Professional driving school vehicles are equipped with dual controls, including a passenger-side brake pedal. This means your instructor can intervene instantly if a dangerous situation arises. When your teen practices in your personal vehicle, you have no way to physically control the car if something goes wrong. Dual controls provide an essential safety net during the earliest and most vulnerable stages of learning.
Knowledge of What Is on the Test
Professional instructors know exactly what the Virginia DMV road test covers. They have seen hundreds of students through the testing process and understand the specific skills, maneuvers, and habits that examiners evaluate. This means your teen won’t just learn to drive — they’ll learn to pass the test on the first attempt. From proper mirror checks to right-of-way rules to parallel parking technique, professional instruction targets what matters most for test day.
No Parent-Teen Tension
Teaching your teenager to drive can be stressful for both of you. The parent-child dynamic introduces emotions that have no place in a learning environment. You might grip the dashboard, raise your voice, or overcorrect — and your teen might shut down, argue back, or become anxious. A professional instructor provides a calm, neutral teaching environment where your teen can focus entirely on learning without the emotional baggage of the parent-teen relationship.
Meets Virginia Requirements for Drivers Under 18
In Virginia, teens under 18 are required to complete behind-the-wheel training through a DMV-certified driving school. Parent-taught driving alone doesn’t satisfy this legal requirement. If your teen is under 18, professional instruction isn’t optional — it’s the law. We’ll cover Virginia’s specific requirements in more detail below.
The Benefits of Learning from Parents
Parent-taught driving has genuine advantages that complement professional instruction. This is where your involvement truly matters.
More Practice Hours
Virginia requires 45 hours of supervised practice driving for teens (including 15 hours at night). Professional behind-the-wheel training typically covers 7-14 hours, which means the remaining hours need to come from practice with a parent or guardian. The more time your teen spends behind the wheel in supervised conditions, the more confident and capable they become. You can provide the sheer volume of practice hours that no driving school schedule can match.
Real-World, Everyday Experience
Driving school lessons happen during scheduled sessions on planned routes. But real life involves driving to school in morning traffic, navigating the grocery store parking lot, merging onto I-66 during rush hour, and driving home in the rain at night. Parent practice exposes your teen to the everyday driving scenarios they will actually encounter as independent drivers. These unstructured, real-world situations build practical experience that complements the structured skills learned in professional lessons.
Bonding Time
When approached with the right mindset (patience, encouragement, and calm correction), practice driving sessions can become meaningful bonding time between parent and teen. It’s a chance to share your own experiences, talk through real situations, and demonstrate the responsible driving habits you want your teen to adopt. Many families find that once the pressure of “teaching” is removed by professional instruction, the practice sessions become much more enjoyable.
No Additional Cost
Practice hours with a parent are free. Once your teen has received professional instruction and understands the fundamentals, every hour you spend practicing together reinforces those skills without adding to the cost of driving lessons. Your family vehicle, your neighborhood streets, and your daily errands all become free learning opportunities.
Why Combining Both Is the Ideal Approach
The best outcomes for teen drivers come from a combination of professional instruction and supervised parent practice. This blended approach works so well for several reasons.
Professional instruction provides the foundation. Your teen learns proper technique, correct habits, and safe practices from a certified expert. They learn in a dual-control vehicle with someone trained to handle new-driver mistakes. They receive structured, sequential training that covers all the skills required for safe driving and test success.
Parent practice provides the volume. You take the solid foundation built by professional instruction and reinforce it through dozens of hours of real-world practice. Your teen applies what they learned in lessons to the roads, intersections, and driving conditions they will navigate every day. Repetition builds muscle memory, confidence, and genuine road awareness.
Professional lessons are like learning from a coach, while parent practice is like team practice and scrimmages. Both are essential. A coach teaches the correct form and strategy, but skills only become second nature through hours and hours of repetition.
Teen drivers who receive both professional instruction and extensive supervised practice have significantly lower crash rates than those who receive only one or the other. The combination produces the safest, most prepared new drivers.
Virginia Requirements: What the Law Says
Virginia law is clear about the requirements for teen drivers under 18. Understanding these requirements is essential for every parent.
- Behind-the-wheel training through a certified school is mandatory. Teens under 18 must complete behind-the-wheel driver training with a DMV-licensed driving school. Parent-only teaching doesn’t satisfy this requirement, regardless of how many hours you practice together.
- Driver education (classroom) is required. Teens must complete a 36-session driver education course before or during their behind-the-wheel training.
- 45 hours of supervised practice driving are required, with at least 15 of those hours at night. A parent, guardian, or other licensed adult over 21 must supervise this practice.
- A learner’s permit must be held for at least 9 months before a teen can apply for a driver’s license.
The key takeaway: if your teen is under 18, you can’t skip professional behind-the-wheel instruction. It’s a legal requirement. But you absolutely should supplement that professional training with as much supervised practice as possible. The law sets the minimum, and exceeding it with additional parent practice is always a good idea.
The Parent-Teen Dynamic: Why It Matters
One of the most overlooked factors in the “professional vs. parent” debate is the psychology of the parent-teen teaching relationship.
Teens respond differently to parents than to professional instructors. When a parent says “slow down,” a teenager might hear criticism or feel defensive. When an instructor gives the same direction, it’s received as neutral, professional guidance. This isn’t a reflection of your parenting — it’s simply the nature of the parent-teen relationship during adolescence.
Common challenges when parents teach driving include:
- Emotional reactions: Parents naturally feel anxious when their child is in a potentially dangerous situation. This anxiety often manifests as gasping, grabbing the dashboard, or raising your voice — all of which increase your teen’s stress and make learning harder.
- Conflicting instructions: You may have driving habits (some good, some not) that differ from what is taught in driving school. This inconsistency can confuse new drivers who need clear, standardized guidance.
- Power struggles: The parent-teen dynamic already involves some degree of authority negotiation. Adding the stress of driving instruction can escalate normal friction into arguments that derail the learning process.
- Difficulty staying objective: It’s hard to evaluate your own child’s driving without bias — either being too lenient because you want to encourage them, or too critical because you’re worried about their safety.
Professional instructors eliminate these dynamics entirely. They provide calm, objective, expert guidance in an emotionally neutral environment. After your teen has built foundational skills and confidence with a professional, your practice sessions together become much smoother because the high-pressure “teaching” phase is already complete. You can focus on reinforcing established skills rather than introducing new concepts from scratch.
Insurance Benefits of Professional Instruction
Many parents don’t think about this advantage: completing professional behind-the-wheel training can earn your teen a significant car insurance discount.
Most major insurance companies in Virginia offer a discount for young drivers who complete an approved driving course. The discount varies by carrier, but it typically ranges from 5% to 15% off your teen’s portion of the policy — and this discount often applies for several years.
When you factor in this ongoing insurance savings, the cost of professional driving lessons is partially offset. Over three to five years of reduced premiums, the savings can be substantial. Parent-taught driving alone typically doesn’t qualify for this discount, even if you log extensive practice hours.
Abba Driving School provides a certificate of completion that you can submit to your insurance company to claim this discount. It’s one more reason why professional instruction is a smart investment in your teen’s driving future.
Abba’s Approach: We Teach, You Reinforce
At Abba Driving School, we believe in the power of partnership between professional instructors and parents. Our approach is designed to give your teen the best of both worlds.
We handle the teaching. Our DMV-certified instructors provide structured, thorough behind-the-wheel training in dual-control vehicles. We cover everything from basic vehicle operation to highway merging, defensive driving, parking maneuvers, and test preparation. Your teen learns proper technique from day one, building correct habits that will last a lifetime.
You provide the practice. After each lesson, we give you guidance on what your teen has learned and what to practice at home. You take those skills and reinforce them through real-world driving in your community. The more you practice, the more confident and capable your teen becomes.
This approach works because it plays to everyone’s strengths. We bring the professional training, the curriculum expertise, the dual-control vehicles, and the DMV test knowledge. You bring the time, the local roads, the everyday driving situations, and the parental guidance that only you can provide.
The result is a teen driver who has received expert instruction, logged extensive practice hours, and is fully prepared to pass the Virginia road test and drive safely for years to come. Check out our complete teen driver guide for more information about the full process.
Ready to get started? Register for behind-the-wheel training and let us build the foundation for your teen’s driving success. You’ll be glad you invested in professional instruction — and your teen will be a better, safer driver because of it.