Chris Edwards
Pictured top: Me with my very first toy car… Since then, I’ve done well over a millon kms in VWs alone!
Helping Parents Inspire Their Kids to be Safer, More Confident Drivers — Without the Stress
For 15 years, (2007-2021) I coached corporate leaders, business owners, and individuals, helping them navigate pressure, set direction, and get the best out of themselves and the people around them. I retired during COVID-19 and created the AussiePeaceWalk and MarchMingle , but now I’ve returned to coaching, but with a completely different focus.
Now I work with parents and their teenagers.
Many of the challenges adults face — the beliefs that hold them back, the way they communicate under pressure, how they handle conflict or criticism — trace back to experiences formed during their teenage years. Often to the relationships they had with their parents as adolescents.
Over the years I often wondered, “What if those patterns never formed in the first place?”
If we could help parents’ relationships with their kids during their teenage years — help them be more patient, more present, more connected — the impact wouldn’t just be felt in the family home. It would follow those teens into their adult lives, into their relationships, and into their work. ‘Prevention is better than cure!’
So why driving instruction?
Because when a teenager is learning to drive, it offers us a structured, extended, pressure-filled window of time when parents and teenagers are side by side with a shared goal.
Those 100 supervised hours in the car are one of the last big experiences you’ll share with your child before he or she steps out the door into adulthood.
That time can be tense and forgettable, or it can quietly build trust, strengthen communication and leave something lasting in both of you.
The primary focus is safe driving
Far too many people die or suffer permanent injuries on Australian roads every year. Young P-plate drivers are the most at-risk, and the driving habits they carry into that first year behind the wheel are largely influenced by their parents.
The way you drive. The way you supervise, the language you use, how you handle stress in the car, how you drive when you are behind the wheel — it all follows them long after they drive away from home on their own.
In my 90-minute Driving Together coaching session, I coach parents in how to give the correct driving instruction to help their child pass an ACT driving test.
This session helps give parents the tools, language and confidence to supervise well: how to give clear, calm instruction; how to manage difficult moments without derailing the driving experience or the relationship.
Learn how to read the learner, learn when to push and when to ease off. Most parents also find, along the way, that they become sharper and more aware drivers themselves.
Safe driving is the vehicle. The relationship is the destination.
Comments from a few of my old coaching clients
I no longer offer leadership, small business, or life-coaching but in the years that I did, this is the sort of thing my clients would say:
Leadership Coaching
“I engaged Chris to assist me with further developing my communication and leadership skills and to assist with setting personal and professional goals.
I have found the advice Chris offered me and the insights into how I could best develop a range of skills to have been invaluable.”
Business Coaching
“Chris regularly surprises us with his insight and quality of his advice. He is very personable and easy to work with, with great understanding of our business and the issues we face. He has an extraordinary breadth of experience to draw on and he contributes a level of strategic acumen not easily found.”
Life Coaching
“He turned my life around! By all accounts, I went from being a ‘fairly miserable so-and-so’ to having a real spring in my step. I couldn’t recommend Chris’ services highly enough.”
(Note: I didn’t turn his life around, he did it all himself. I just helped him change his mindset… and then I pushed him a little!)
Below: Some of the cars I had over the years
Check out my ex-army 1977 VW Kombi. I did over 500,000kms in that one in the 18 years I owned it. I clocked up over 350,000 in the blue Beetle, and 320,000 in the X-Trail.
So that is over 1.1 million kilometres just driving those three cars! (27.5 times round the earth at the equator.) One day I’ll have to add it all up, but I’ve driven a few million kilometres in all road and weather conditions.
Pictured: – Some of the cars I’ve owned.
I’ve owned: a Plymouth, 2 VW Beetles, 2 VW Kombis, 2 VW Type 3s, 2 Audis, 2 other VWs, a Citroen, a Ford, 3 Holdens, a Mitsubishi, 2 Mazdas, a Subaru and a Nissan.
These days I drive a VW Passat Alltrack, a 1974 VW Kombi Camper, and a Mazda CX30 AWD.
I use a manual dual-control Kia Cerato for driving instruction.
