Youngest Certified Scuba Diver in PADI History

[Wookie]

I'm not sure we should be celebrating someone so young being certified to participate in a sport that may require them to exercise the kind of task management and panic control skills that are far beyond the scope of a 10 year old. When everything goes perfectly diving is relatively easy and manageable for almost anyone but the moment things go south, it takes maturity and experience to manage the anxiety and deal with the challenge.

My issue is that PADI allows divers younger than (whatever, 16?) to dive with an instructor, DM, or parent, thereby creating a situation that most divers on this board rail against. So, is the parent, DM, or instructor responsible to save the youngster in the event of an out of control situation, or is the youngster responsible for the adult? What happened to "we're all solo, sometimes we choose to spend our solo dive time with someone else?"

 

[nimoh]

Now that the gauntlet has been thrown, I'm sure another kid with risk averse parents will find a seedy instructor to get them certified in less than two hours after their tenth birthday. Perhaps someone will fake a birth certificate to get certified, and there will be a big scandal when the truth comes out...what are the rules for this competition?

this is right up there with the world record for deepest dive on air.

 

[packrat12]

We went through this type of issue in aviation also. It became a fad to see who could be the youngest to fly some milestone distance. Jessica Dubroff was 7 when she was killed when she was trying to fly across the US. At that time, the FAA sent stern letters to all CFI’s (Flight Instructors) that this type of activity was reckless. At that age, she could not even solo an airplane.
The idea of setting age records is stupid and should not be condoned by PADI or any other training agency, no matter the sport. I watched in disbelief when Jessica&#8217;s flight was being hyped (others were doing it at the time also). I was disgusted at the CFI when she was killed as he had enabled her to do it. It made no sense that this was being attempted and supported by a CFI. This also pertains to Scuba instruction. The minimum age for an OW certification is 10. Do what you want prior to that as long as it meets the <10 requirements. If the student is ready to take the OW check dives, so be it. This is not special, it is not something that should be condoned by anybody and should be treated as any other Jr OW certification. Congratulations to the young diver I really hope that you find a love in it as my family has. I have no problem with the idea of certification at 10. I just have a problem with a &#8216;challenge&#8217; to be the youngest. When I learned to dive, 12 was the minimum but there was no Jr attached and no real limitations. I was 16 when I learned and regularly dove on dive boats etc without parent or guardian signatures. I miss the pre-lawsuit happy days. I am sometimes at odds with dive boats with my Jr Rescue diver daughter when we go on some of the more &#8216;challenging&#8217; dives.
My daughter was certified at 11. By 13 she was a skilled diver and was comfortable diving deeper wrecks including U-352 and the Spiegel Grove. The burden of her safety is on her parents as well as her. We dive as a team, plan all of our dives thoroughly and take safety very seriously. Our family takes a brief winter break, typically. Once we restart, we will do a complete pool check to make sure all of our gear as well as our daughter&#8217;s skills are current. I am comfortable in her skill set to allow for most unforeseen emergencies. She also was a much more mature child and prepared for the skills she needed. At 11, we were doing shallow dives with 100% focus on her. By 12, she had progressed to where we were more enjoying the dive. After that, she was as skilled and competent as anyone we would meet on a boat. We also continued her training through Jr. Rescue and Nitrox.

 

[Bob DBF]

SCUBA training is not about safety, its about the pretty fishes and a revenue stream.



Bob
-------------

That's my point, people, by and large, are not taught that diving can be deadly, they are taught how safe it is, and they are not equipped with the skills, taught and trained to the level required to be useful in an emergency.

 

[mjrob]

Damn. I didn't even have time to get my bag of popcorn out of the microwave before the slamming began! You guys are getting too fast for me to keep up with.

 

[SeaHorse81]

I feel bad for the little kid who didn't know enough to evaluate what she was getting into, and who had no choice but to just trust the adults whose motives are unclear. It's worrisome to me that her dive career has a foundation of, "Don't worry, this will be fine, we know what we're doing." I fear she's going to have "trust me dive" wired into her as standard operating procedure for a long time.

 

[Wookie]

I don't know, I've met divers as young as 8 who are fine, but they are rare. No one told the little guy he would be fine, or it would all be OK, or that his instructor-mom would take care of him, he wanted to learn to dive, his mom set him up in gear, and out on the boat they went. A dive boat many of us have been on, at least in South Florida. I think this speaks more to setting scuba "records" than it does to mental capacity of the prospective diver. Every diver should be evaluated on their own merits, but then, most of us wouldn't be diving if there were real prerequisites to start diving.....

 

[Scared Silly]

Who gives a crap? As some have said when does it stop? I guess when some kid was born at 11:59 pm gets certified ~ten years later at 12:01am? Yeah technically they are 9 years and 364 days old but hey who is counting. Whatever, like most records just a bunch of mouth masturbation.

 

[gypsyjim]

My son was 10 when he earned his OW, but it was not a race, and he would certainly not have earned his certification if he had not shown enough maturity to become a safe, confident diver. The fact that he was just 10 when he "certified" is nothing I would brag about, but the fact that he is a dive partner that I have felt safe diving with for the last 11 years IS something I am very happy about.

 

[DeputyTom]

A few months after PADI changed the minimum age to 10, the shop I was teaching for asked me to do a private class for a 10 year old boy. I was very hesitant about it, but after meeting this young man and working with him, I realized he was very mature for his age and the classroom, pool lessons and open water dives went better than with a lot of adults I've taught. As some others have said, it all depends on the maturity level. I've kicked adults out of classes in the past due to being inmature.