Teaching my daughter scuba diving?

[phoenix31tt]

awap i'll ignore your idiotic statement...

bdsc i hear what you are saying... but i was illustrating to you how principle works... you do it with the small things, you can do it with the big things... and i see he has some level of responsibility by keeping it confined.. but even confined you still need to be trained to react to certain situations...

the OP asked what bad habits he could be teaching her... i expressed my opinion.. he's teaching her that its ok to do things you are not trained to do as long as it seems safe to you... its not a matter of if he's training her well... he sounds like he's doinga great job in that aspect...

 

[stevensman]

I'm very new to diving - just got OW and working on AOW. But the advantage - I really remember my OW class. I truly believe that OP is doing a right thing. None of those OW drills are difficult to do and to teach. Some students still have problems just because they are not comfortable being under water with all those stuff strapped on. More time one spends in the pool practicing the drill - safer it is going to be for that person when he/she dives for real. I was VERY comfortable with all drills during OW - I used to swim competitively and freedive a little but I wish I had more time in the pool, just more time to get really comfortable with all scuba equipment. And seeing other students who got certified - they MUST have more time, their training in pool and OW was way too short to become confident and not dangerous for them self and for others.
So, is there a risk in teaching your daughter in pool - yes, there is some. But I believe that doing so she will become much better and safer diver after she completes her OW course and overall will have less risk when she continues to dive.
For whatever it worth my daughter (she is 11) is going through OW training right now. No, I'm not teaching her and mostly because I do not have access to the pool. And I selected a program with longest pool sessions I could find around here - total of five 1.5 hours sessions in the pool

So he is doing absolutely right thing. Again, not much diving experience here but have a lot of experience teaching and coaching other sports.

 

[redacted]

awap i'll ignore your idiotic statement... .

Actually, they were questions, not statements. And I did not expect you would have a reasonable answer.

 

[phoenix31tt]

Actually, they were questions, not statements. And I did not expect you would have a reasonable answer.

since you persist...

since when do you need a certificate to ride a bike or need a certified instructor to teach same... how bout you ask me how did i ever learn to drive a car.. and where did i find a certified instructor to teach me (i'll be more than happy to provide that information)..

you were being facetious... lets try to be adults and have a civilized discussion

 

[redacted]

since you persist...

since when do you need a certificate to ride a bike or need a certified instructor to teach same... how bout you ask me how did i ever learn to drive a car.. and where did i find a certified instructor to teach me (i'll be more than happy to provide that information)..

you were being facetious... lets try to be adults and have a civilized discussion

You do not need a certification to scuba dive!!! But it does make it a lot easier to gain access where access is controlled.

In most locations, you do need a license to drive and doing so without one risks legal repercussions.

But in terms of risks, potential dangers and required knowledge and skills, I believe OW diving, driving a car and riding a bicycle are very comparable. Granted, my views on scuba training are not typical. I believe training should be optional and scuba certification should be based entirely on a test of required knowledge, skills, and abilities. And, yes, that test should be conducted by a trained and qualified tester.

 

[phoenix31tt]

Glad that's cleared up

now that i know your views toward training and certs i can respect that...

but thats not the way its done right now so...

 

[Dthomas]

I am not going to say I agree or disagree. For decades generations learned to dive without taking a course from Certified Instructors. But then the sport evolved to one whereby instruction from a certifying organization and certified Instructor is not "legally required" it is so to get access to air, and well highly recommended. Standards were set and instructors were trained for improved safety.

My only real question comes in regards to the rule of primacy. How a skill is first demonstrated is generally what an individual will always default to in a panic scenario. It is kind of like it is imprinted in their brain as an instinct response. To overcome this requires re-training in to form of countless repetition of a skill until the retrained skill is automatic. It is also often the case that there is not enough time in an OW course for the required amount of repetition needed for re-training.

What tends to happen if there is an accident that claims the life of a newly certified diver. In the investigation once equipment malfunction is ruled out - the investigation turns to the training of the diver. At this point the certifying instructor is the person held accountable as they are deemed responsible for the divers training. If the cause of the accident was due to the diver responding in the manner they were first introduced rather than what they were taught - should this then rightly fall on the instructor if the instructor was not the individual that first demonstrated the skills to the diver. I would assume no, however this tends to not be the case.

I am not implying skills demonstrated by the OP were done incorrectly as I do not know.

 

[DaleC]

I have to disagree with this statement ,there are too many people who refuse to take responsibility for their own actions and attempt to blame others for them.It is quite evident in our society (U.S.A.) .

A situation which is only exacerbated by the notion that one cannot do anything risky (no matter how slight) without some form of external oversight. After all, if something goes wrong then you can always sue the instructor.

If you want people to take responsibility you begin by treating them like they are capable of being responsible. Not by attempting to make them feel afraid of any sort of independent action.

 

[Quero]

On a serious note, sincerely, can someone explain to me how I can screw up
a mask clearing drill, a regulator recovery drill, an air sharing drill or for that
matter any of the other basic skills?

It's true that many of the skills are pretty straightforward, with a caveat here and there. The caveats are the little mistakes that we routinely see students make and that we watch for as they are beginning to perform the skills. You asked for an example, though, so here's one. As mentioned by several others, breath-holding poses a big potential risk, even in a pool, and we have to be very vigilant when teaching, for example, regulator recovery, to remind student divers to blow bubbles whenever the reg is out of their mouth. We start with that skill in the very first pool dive, and we try to instill this no-reg-bubble-blowing habit starting with regulator clearing, moving to reg recovery and clearing, to stationary alternate air source use, ooa drills, and so on. Each progressively more complex skill that involves taking a reg out of the mouth task loads the student to some degree, and often (I dare say in the majority of cases), even when they KNOW they have to blow bubbles, they forget and hold their breath while performing the skill. It may very well be that you are insisting on bubble-blowing, but if you're not, and she gets in the habit of recovering a reg without blowing bubbles because you've covered the skill over and over and over with her in the pool, she cold easily acquire an ingrained bad habit that has to be changed.

I know I have less than 100 dives, but how many bad scuba behaviors can I actually teach her in the pool?
...Seriously, can someone give me an example of some bad behavior or bad advise I may
be "likely" giving my daughter?

I don't believe I or anyone else said you were "likely" instilling bad habits. I only suggested that you may be doing so unwittingly, but that I can't say since I've never seen you dive. The big three elements of good technique in scuba diving, IMO are buoyancy, trim, and propulsion. You could be, for example, a hand swimmer so that your daughter sees that and picks up this bad habit; you could dive in a 30° head up angle so that she sees that and copies it; you could be using an inefficient kicking style which she emulates. All of these, once they're ingrained, take a lot of work to fix. I admit that as an instructor I'm fairly fanatical about insisting on good trim, efficient kicking, and no hand swimming, and I realize that not all instructors take this position, but these would be the sorts of behaviors I'd be watchful for if I received a student like your daughter with hours of instruction from a relative who could be still fine-tuning his own skills.

 

[DaleC]

dale and bdsc answer me this honestly

when you see articles like "ow diver dies while exploring caves or ow diver dies @ 200 ft while catching lobster"... what would you think/say about the diver...

i suppose any responsible diver would first ask... why were they doing that.. were they trained to do such.. did they have any experience?...

would that be your reaction? or would you be like.. cudos for diver for being "brave"...

who knows how the OP would react in an emergency situation even in 10' of water... does the op know himself how to react?... you all are seeming to ignore the simple point im making... what stops daughter now from doing the same in the future.. say entering a wreck even though she was not trained to do such.. (this is essentially what he is doing)...

again to OP... get her trained/certified by a good instructor and then work with her to gain the experience and confidence...

you dont know what you dont know... and not being trained or having any experience to do training means there are things you dont know that you should

Yeah, I would say they were brave because, if I believe a father can practice skills in a pool with his daughter I must be an insensitive a$$. 0-24 dives and you have this all figured out - thank goodness you don't suffer from over confidence.