ABSTRACT

One day, I received a frantic phone call from a hearing mother. She told me that her 19-year-old deaf daughter insisted on taking driver’s education classes in preparation for her license. The mother requested that I “talk her out of it.” I explicitly noted her distress, and strongly recommended that both of them come to my office in 2 hr, emphasizing that “this is obviously quite serious.” (In terms of indicating potential family dysfunction, this news was serious.) They appeared in my waiting room 30 min early. After listening to both sides of the parent-adolescent conflict, I questioned the daughter, Susan, on her motivation for wanting to drive and asked her if she had considered all of the disadvantages of driving, such as paying for gas, upkeep, insurance, parking tickets, excise tax, depreciation, and so on. She emphatically replied affirmatively to all of my inquiries. I sensed that she had only a vague idea of what was being asked, and that her affirmative answers were designed to mollify her mother and me. However, in the process of my questioning, she was getting educated as to how one goes about getting a license, about the logistics of increasing her independence from her parents, and was clearly becoming more animated and motivated. That was, in part, my intent.