Just a thought from my own experience too many years ago for me to want to count (just before the GDL thing came in, as I wanted to get in under the wire at the time
).
PATIENCE. Learning to drive with my dad was great. I'd get things like "...maybe not so close to the fence next time...".
Driving with my mom on the other hand.
"NOT SO CLOSE!" or
"WATCH OUT FOR THAT CAR!!!"
"What car?!"
"THE RED ONE DOWN THERE, YOU DON'T SEE IT?!"
"...it's like 3 intersections away, and we're doing 50..."
Don't take someone driving if you fall into the latter category. It's unnecessarily stressful and also annoying and potentially off-putting. Following those experiences, I opted not to practice at home, and did most of my practical driving-learning at driver's ed, though I would've much preferred to have had more hands-on at home first, if only my eardrums could've survived it...
Some great suggestions in this thread, to seek out quieter towns, industrial areas, etc. I definitely appreciated slowly and gradually working up from no traffic to main roads when learning.
My skid-steering experiences came partly from previous and quality racing games with a force feedback steering wheel, and primarily from controlled 'stunting' with my own cars during winter in vacant parking lots. I am a strong believer that driving training should definitely include a component of what a car is capable of. Drivers that freak out when a tire loses traction are not properly trained for Canadian winters, IMO, and figuring out your own vehicle can prove invaluable. I know, for example, that turning the traction control OFF in my current vehicle when it is icy actually makes it handle much more predictably around corners (oversteer vs understeer).