try dive for my daughter - age 9 ?

[ZenDiver.3D]

SDI has Future Buddies. They can dive with an instructor in confined water not deeper than 6 meters. My daughter did it, and I have trained quite a few in it. It all depends on the kid.

And then at 10, junior Open Water cert- 12 meter limit until 12yrs old and madatory dive with parent.

 

[alibi 2]

Your daughter is a great age to learn skin diving skills. We started our son skindiving by age 7. We free dive for abalone so we took him with us and spent a lot of time getting him comfortable free diving down to look at pretty shells and animals. it was really fun as a family and he developed important skills he would later use for scuba.

When our son was 12yrs. he got his scuba cert. with his father taking the class with him as his partner. He did very well and had no problems understanding the math/physic required to understand the safety concepts of the tables.

NAUI and PADI have now lowered the age for cert to age 10yrs. Many Instructors don't agree with this. My husband has trained three 10yr olds so far. Only two have passed and both went to tropical warm locations to do their open water check out skills.

I helped as a dive master. We both agree on a couple things. When training a 10yr. we will only do it as a private lesson. We have found that even the smartest 10yr old did not have the attention span for the time that a regular class takes including pool. They all needed to have the lesson reworded so they could understand it and not frighten them. To make it thru they really need to be able to grasp some understanding of physics..math skills are somewhat growth related. Some are good at an earlier age and some are delayed a little.

For the written test we had to read each individual question to them to make sure they understood the words and what they meant. The only student that didn't make it really was not that dedicated to learning to dive. She was only semi interested and only to go along to please her dad. It became obvious to all, including her dad that she did not want to put in the studying of effort to learn. When it came time for the test she had no understanding of the tables and was even confused about the difference between ascending and descending. Her father agreed with us that it would be best to wait till she was older to dive. However she did enjoy junior lifeguard activities.

Good luck with your daughter. Dont rush it and turn her off to diving. You want her to really enjoy the experiance and continue diving for a long time.

 

[sskirsty]

My 10 year old daughter completed her check out dives yesterday in Florida. We had a private instructor conduct her lessons - that worked out really well for her (and her older sister, who ultimately didn't finish the class). She passed her test with flying colors and really enjoys being underwater. Before starting her classes, we spent a lot of time preparing for the pool test, snorkeling, and generally spending as much time as possible in the water. She has always enjoyed being in the water and thoroughly enjoyed learning as much as possible about dive science.

Like others have said - don't rush, take your time, and make sure your daughter is really interested in the sport.

 

[Cruisin Home]

had my daughter in our pool since age 6. only 5 feet deep. great experience. wont allow open water until 12.