Being a truck driver is a life of rewards and challenges. Truckers are often on the road for days, weeks, or even months. For many people, this creates many difficulties in personal relationships and self-care that can weigh heavily on truckers and their families. Often, truckers’ families are not sure what they can do to support their truck drivers. In other cases, truck drivers may not know how to communicate what kind of support they need. Trucking can be an intense, exhausting lifestyle, and for those who are not careful, it can take its toll.
With all the pressures that come with trucking, truck drivers need support. If they lack the right support structure, they can quickly become overwhelmed or feel neglected. Truck drivers need personal assistance like anyone else, but in unique ways by the nature of their jobs. The demands of a trucking lifestyle can put a strain on any relationship. Knowing how to support a truck driver is essential for both their well-being and yours. In this article, we will walk you through some of the most important things you can do to support the truck driver in your life.
Prioritize Time Together
When your truck driver is back from the road, the last thing you want is to lose time you could have spent together. Learning how to take care of household issues by yourself or who to contact in cases beyond your expertise are vital to keeping your time together prioritized. Otherwise, your time together can be eaten up by unnecessary appointments, work, and other distractions. Both of you should do everything you can to make your time together stress-free and enjoyable. This is not only good for your relationship but also helps your truck driver focus on the road.
Make sure you learn to adapt to a lifestyle of changing schedules, too. Rather than celebrating holidays or life events on their actual dates, you may need to celebrate them whenever your truck driver is home. Truck drivers can often have sporadic schedules that make one-size-fits-all solutions difficult, but you two should try to find the best plan that fits you. Some truck drivers and their partners prefer being together every night, while others are okay with time apart if there are days or weeks together in-between.
Open the Lines of Communication
Perhaps the most important thing you can do to support a truck driver is to keep the lines of communication as open as possible. One of the easiest ways to do this is to set up a specific time on a scheduled day for your truck driver to call home. This schedule can be a range of three or four hours to give your truck driver leeway if they are ahead of or behind schedule. This helps ensure you two are communicating.
When you communicate, make sure you try to be tactful, leaving big problems and issues for when your truck driver comes home if possible. Worry on the road can not only be stressful, but even dangerous. Think of it as if your truck driver is an employee at the office. Unless it cannot wait, it is best not to bring up problems until they come home. Drivers need to focus on the tasks at hand to stay safe.
That said, your truck driver would want to hear how you have been, how your kids and pets are, or about friends and family. If possible, schedule your calls for times when you know your whole family can be together. Make sure your truck driver knows they can open up about how they are doing and whether there is anything they need. And make sure that your truck driver knows that they can call outside these scheduled check-ins, too, if they ever feel the need.
A Few Good Ways to Support Your Truck Driver
These are just a few important ways you can support your truck driver. Not every truck driver or family has the same needs though. When considering a trucking lifestyle be sure to sit down with your truck driver and come up with what the best plan for your family and your driver is. Remember that plans can and often will change, it is best to adapt to being flexible.