Teaching my daughter scuba diving?

[bpotkin]

Quero,
Thanks for your response. I agree that my daughter's future instructor should go over A-Z and not assume that she has had anything more than a good introduction to Scuba.

 

[Quero]

Quero,
Thanks for your response. I agree that my daughter's future instructor should go over A-Z and not assume that she has had anything more than a good introduction to Scuba.

You're welcome. However, I wouldn't even assume she HAS had a "good introduction." I would assume NOTHING. I would make my own assessment and would not rely on the assessment of a non-professional with relatively few dives to his credit.

 

[bpotkin]

Phoenix31tt,
The purpose of the thread was to get multiple opinions about working with my Daughter "in my pool" before her formal OW class. Some instructors that I have personally spoke to did not seem to have a problem with it as long as she was heading into a formal class. I wanted to see what the overall SB opinion was. Naturally, the responses I receive will influence me. It has already motivated me to
sign her up sooner than later.

 

[Rogersea]

I have recently purchased all new gear for my 19 year old Daughter.
She has finished the PADI open water book including doing all of the quizes.
We have also gone over test questions etc. She is busy going to Colledge
so her official ow training is planned for a few months from now. In the
meantime, we have have done over 8 dives in our swimming pool and she
can perform all of the drills very comfortably. I am a PADI
AOW diver with a CPR card and working on rescue. Does anybody have
any issues with me working with my daughter in our pool? I am definitely
not going to take her in the ocean until she is certified!

As a relatively experienced SCUBA Instructor, I have no problem with what you have done assuming it was done in a safe conservative manner.

I have certified several divers who were taught by relatives/friends/spouses and the majority of them had not picked up any terrible habits. Since it was your daughter that you were "Pool diving" with I am sure that you took care of her. After my experiences teaching my wife to drive, another instructor taught my daughter to dive.....

I recommend you reiterate to her, not to do any open water dives while away at college until she is in a course......


Cheers,
Roger

 

[offroadr1]

I was taught skills in my pool by my dive buddy a few weeks before I started my OW classes. It wasn't a problem in my case. I was ready when it was my turn to demonstrate and it all worked out well. I would have to imagine every case is different though. You ultimately have to be the judge of your actions.

 

[chrpai]

As for working with her in the pool, I've never seen you dive, and you may be an excellent role model, or you may still have residual skill glitches that you are transmitting to your daughter without realizing it. Instructors are required to have "demonstration quality" skills that are role-model perfect for student divers to emulate. I would be concerned, personally, that you are unwittingly instilling undesirable habits in your modeling of skills since a good number of AOW divers are still developing and perfecting their diving techniques and skills.

And who's fault would those "residual skills glitches" be? IMO, if agencies had higher training standards O/W divers would also have demonstration quality skills. Instead they get passed along with "good enough" skills. IMO the "glitches" would be transmitted anyways because as soon as the certification class is over the newly minted O/W diver is going to be diving with her father and trusting him to be her mentor anyways.

 

[DaleC]

I was wondering about those bad habits too. Who taught me to kneel in the sand for every thing, who taught me to just pop up to the surface, who put 42lb's of lead on me...?

 

[tracydr]

This is why my husband rents the gear for his students rather than letting the students go and rent their own gear.
He doesn't want them screwing around in the pool without an instructor present until they are trained.
Despite the fact that you're you're both adults, you're not even Rescue trained, much less DM. The regulator is a piece of life support and can kill you if not properly respected.
It's not that difficult to kill yourself in your own pool on scuba. Crazier things have happened. There was a rebreather diver who was also an instructor who died in his pool.
Maybe it would be best to just play around with mask and snorkel until its time to go to class. Leave the regulator until the class starts. The mask clearing, removal skills tend to be the hardest, anyway. If she can nail the mask skills, she'll be way ahead of the curve. Strong mask and snorkeling skills, maybe some free diving skills, will put her way ahead of the game, without endangering he life or giving her bad habits.
Have her practice breathing from a snorkel without a mask, with a flooded mask, remove and replace mask, etc.
If you have a lake, quarry or ocean, go out and snorkel and practice entries with fins. Watermanship goes a long way towards helping with scuba class.

 

[Quero]

And who's fault would those "residual skills glitches" be? IMO, if agencies had higher training standards O/W divers would also have demonstration quality skills. Instead they get passed along with "good enough" skills. IMO the "glitches" would be transmitted anyways because as soon as the certification class is over the newly minted O/W diver is going to be diving with her father and trusting him to be her mentor anyways.

"Fault"??? Nobody's. It's simply a question of learning curve, which by definition takes time and experience to climb. A diver with 50 dives typically hasn't got enough experience/time in the water to have dialed in skills to a degree that the diver can serve as a mentor. It's also not a question of training standards, unless standards were to require all divers to attain professional-level skill sets before becoming certified.

 

[tracydr]

Now thats the way to whack a hornets nest.

My daughter was away in college when the SCUBA bug bit her and was certified without my involvement.

On the other hand, my dad and I learned to SCUBA dive with a book and minimal dive gear, one set for both of us, so I have little or no room to comment negatavily. Be carefull, one can drown in a few inches of water.



Bob
---------------------------
I may be old, but I'm not dead yet.

So true. I've heard of a few close calls, even on scuba, in just a few feet of water. I myself, stumbled while flooding my wetsuit on a hot day. I hadn't turned my air on and fell in a 6-10 foot deep hole. I had a steel tank on and I was sure I was going to drown. Nobody saw it happened and it was all I could do to swim my tank to the surface with no air in my lungs. An Instructor and DM within feet of me on the surface and nobody even knew anything was wrong.