Pool "practice" vs instruction is key. Nothing wrong with extra practice. Nothing wrong with keeping skills honed pending open water dives. Just stay in the pool.
DivemasterDennis
DivemasterDennis
Teaching my daughter scuba diving?
- Thread starter bpotkin
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BP, one more opinion: I personally see absolutely no reason why a competent, experienced scuba diver should not teach his daughter to scuba dive. To *automatically* assume that *any* card-carrying scuba instructor is more competent to instruct one's daughter is folly. IMHO.
Still, if you have to ask ...
Safe Diving,
rx7diver
P.S. See http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/new-divers-those-considering-diving/430644-kids-scuba.html.
PartyStar
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The first thing I taught my son was Doc's Diving Medicine Home Page how to clear his ears. My DM did not talk about this at all because he was so busy with the ten others onboard.
My very first dive, the guy pressured (sic) me to hurry-up and I went on to have baratrauma after my first dive. Love hurts.
Yes, I taught my son and he lives to dive some more and has been certified by PADI who sends us invoices on a yearly basis so they can (try to) sell us more classes and a mag.
On his 5th dive, he experienced the Busch and number 5 was Vandy. He had to get certified for other trips. I know lots of kids trained well by their parents who are
excellent divers. Money goes for world wide travel and diving - not for a Fish ID class. Maybe PADI can invent a certification on where to get the best scuba packages...
My very first dive, the guy pressured (sic) me to hurry-up and I went on to have baratrauma after my first dive. Love hurts.
Yes, I taught my son and he lives to dive some more and has been certified by PADI who sends us invoices on a yearly basis so they can (try to) sell us more classes and a mag.
On his 5th dive, he experienced the Busch and number 5 was Vandy. He had to get certified for other trips. I know lots of kids trained well by their parents who are
excellent divers. Money goes for world wide travel and diving - not for a Fish ID class. Maybe PADI can invent a certification on where to get the best scuba packages...
800Phelps
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the safety police on this forum is such a turnoff. i had several long post wrote up, but i will just leave it alone. to the OP if you're comfy teaching her the basics and she knows the risk than by all means...
i once heard "driving a car is the most dangerous thing a human can do" yet we let 16yr old kids drive with little to no training. god forbid a guy trains his daughter in a 4ft pool
i once heard "driving a car is the most dangerous thing a human can do" yet we let 16yr old kids drive with little to no training. god forbid a guy trains his daughter in a 4ft pool
What your daughter got was someone who had an infinite amount of time to work with her, and she got tons of time to experience her equipment and play with buoyancy control, and repeat the skills until she might actually MEET the standard of "mastery".
What she didn't get was someone who was trained to present the material in a certain way, and to do "demonstration quality" skills. BUT -- and this is a big "but" -- you aren't intending what you are doing to SUBSTITUTE for a formal class, but simply to be an extensive preparation for one.
Are there things that can get a diver into trouble in a pool? Sure, there are. The students who are terribly frightened before starting their class worry me, because there really are only two ways to get hurt in the pool. One is to fail to clear on descent, and the other is to hold your breath on ascent. Failing those two things, the worst that is going to happen in the pool if things aren't done properly is that someone will get a fright, which is always a very sad thing, but is certainly survivable.
From your description of what you have done, it sounds as though you have been very careful to go over buddy checks and safety procedures. I personally think your daughter is probably much better off for what you have done with her, even if all of it wasn't perfect.
What she didn't get was someone who was trained to present the material in a certain way, and to do "demonstration quality" skills. BUT -- and this is a big "but" -- you aren't intending what you are doing to SUBSTITUTE for a formal class, but simply to be an extensive preparation for one.
Are there things that can get a diver into trouble in a pool? Sure, there are. The students who are terribly frightened before starting their class worry me, because there really are only two ways to get hurt in the pool. One is to fail to clear on descent, and the other is to hold your breath on ascent. Failing those two things, the worst that is going to happen in the pool if things aren't done properly is that someone will get a fright, which is always a very sad thing, but is certainly survivable.
From your description of what you have done, it sounds as though you have been very careful to go over buddy checks and safety procedures. I personally think your daughter is probably much better off for what you have done with her, even if all of it wasn't perfect.
Well.....
Ok.... on the one hand if your daughter is 1/2 as enthusiastic as you are then she'd probably be in the pool alone so why not do it with her.
On the other hand, whatever bad habits (if any) you might be teaching her will be things that she'll need to "unlearn" when she takes the official course. One thing that would be hard to avoid in your case is to set a tone that you're in charge and she follows you. This is the kind of habit she wouldn't get into in an OW course because the students are being taught how to dive as independent divers. What I notice with parent/child combinations is that this tendency is often very strong and hard to break. If you spend a lot of time in your own pool reinforcing this behaviour then it might be very hard for her to think independently of someone telling her what to do.
I'm not saying that you're doing this, I obviously don't know you, so just take it as an example of what I mean by "bad habits". Personally, if you want to dive with her in your pool then I would say go ahead for now but just spend 80% of your time blowing bubbles together for now and keep the actual skill training to a minimum.
R..
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"Officially", it is not proper for a dive pro to say it's OK for someone not qualified to teach someone else. But as it obviously goes on anyway, I would agree with TS & M. No holding breath. Keep calm. My parents taught me to drive -- over 40 years ago--no accidents, 2 speeding tickets. Same with my wife-- 3 tickets--ha ha. "Officially", no one that's not solo certified should ever dive alone. This commonly happens. We make decisions. It's all about risk.
Texasguy
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800Phelps
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