My 10 year old wants to dive.

It was recently brought to my attention that PADI has a junior scuba diver certification. That a junior scuba diver is certified to go to a max depth of 45ft. At age 15 he will be certified as an OWD. Since hearing of this, all my boy talks about is becoming a Scuba Diver. He even changed his future career choice. Now he wants to be an underwater photographer, which is great. As a Diver, I'm well aware of the dangers inherent to diving. Taking into account the anatomical and behavioral differences between an adult and a child. Especially given the smaller size of a kids lungs and the fact that kids are prone to panic and forget important things when something goes wrong. But as his Father, I think it would be a proud moment for the boy. Imagine going to school and being the only Scuba Diver in 5th grade. I don't want to rob him of an achievment like that. I'm both excited and terrified of the idea. How safe is it for a 10 year old to scuba dive?

I think your best bet is to determine the maturity level of your child. If you think he is mature enough to take Scuba serious, then he may be ok to get certified. I have a 16 year old nephew that is not mature enough to take diving seriously so he is not going to certified any time soon.

A PADI junior open water diver has to dive with someone who is certified may only dive with a PADI Professional, a certified parent or certified guardian to a maximum depth of 40 feet. So assuming you are the one diving with your son, you would be there to make sure that he can safely complete the dive.

I think it would be really neat for your son to be certified and do great dives. Especially if he gets lots of cool pics of himself and the stuff he sees to show it off. But only you as his parent can judge if he can handle it.

Not only PADI but SSI also has a program for ten year olds. We have seen both sides of the coin. A ten year old with good attention skills and family support does very well. One without those skills and support may or may not. We require our ten to twelve year olds to do Scuba Rangers first. That paves the way for skill development and comfort. My favorite young diver Sam just celebrated his 12th birthday and his 60th dive (of course his father takes him trout fishing in North Carolina, diving in Bonaire and Honduras, and big game hunging in Africa.) Over the years I have found that young divers have a greater level of self-confidence and sense of achievement than their peers who don't.

Kids come to me for questions on finding a career in diving that will make a difference. There are just so many jobs for marine biologists and so many skills and ability to sell your work are required for an underwater photographer that makes a living. Howard Hall once told me that if he and I were to go the same dive sites with the same equipment that my pictures would probably be as good as his. The only difference was that he went through the heartache of selling his.

I tell many young folks that if I could do it over again I would become a veterinarian and specialize in marine mammals and birds. Anyway - encourage your exuberant soon to become a diver and rock on.

Tom Smedley:

Not only PADI but SSI also has a program for ten year olds. We have seen both sides of the coin. A ten year old with good attention skills and family support does very well. One without those skills and support may or may not. We require our ten to twelve year olds to do Scuba Rangers first. That paves the way for skill development and comfort. My favorite young diver Sam just celebrated his 12th birthday and his 60th dive. Over the years I have found that young divers have a greater level of self-confidence and sense of achievement.

Kids come to me for questions on finding a career in diving that will make a difference. There are just so many jobs for marine biologists and so many skills and ability to sell your work are required for an underwater photographer that makes a living. Howard Hall once told me that if he and I were to go the same dive sites with the same equipment that my pictures would probably be as good as his. The only difference was that he went through the heartache of selling his.

I tell many young folks that if I could do it over again I would become a veterinarian and specialize in marine mammals and birds. Anyway - encourage your exuberant soon to become a diver and rock on.

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I have found that young divers have a greater level of self-confidence and sense of achievement.

Exactly where I think he'd benefit most.

Exactly the areas where I think he'd benefit most. But my fears are more based on the effects diving has on a smaller person with smaller lungs breathing compressed air at depth. A Mini Deep-6 if you will.

luckydays:

I think your best bet is to determine the maturity level of your child. If you think he is mature enough to take Scuba serious, then he may be ok to get certified. I have a 16 year old nephew that is not mature enough to take diving seriously so he is not going to certified any time soon.

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And in assessing maturity I would bring in opinions other than my own.

Not knowing how much of a "water dog" your boy is, this might be the oppunortunity to vastly improve his swimming / snorkeling / freediving skills with SCUBA training as the goal. The self-confidence and sense of achievement will be found twice and you will have more piece of mind knowing he is very skilled in the water.

Good Luck and Good Diving
Bob

Hi Deep-6,

I am not as concerned about your child's safety as I am about his career choice. PADI will deluge you with platitudes such as live the dream, but in reality is is difficult to eke out a living for a single person in scuba, let alone a family. As a condition of allowing him to certify and dive, make him keep up the grades in something that will pay the bills (but something he likes). SB is full of professional divers who can vouch for how hard it is to make SCUBA a job - best it remain a hobby.

My advice (being a father): let him dive, make him commit to going at least to rescue diver certification, PLEASE consider training him outside of PADI (NAUI comes to mind) if you value his safety.

Well before that he wanted to be a video game designer and before that he wanted Jeff Corwin's job so really who knows. One things for certain, I'll kick his butt if he decides to be a Fireman.

My grandson was certified last year at 10. He has made several dives with his father at Monterey and we'll probably be there again in a week or so. He's a pretty good diver and we spend time in the LDS's pool keeping him wet.

But he has always like the water and it was just a matter of time until he got certified.

I believe the limit is 40' but our limit is 30' for the next year or so. There's no hurry to go deeper.

Richard

My daughter did her JOW at the same time I did OW, she was 10 when we started the class. She had a couple of skills she struggled with in the pool, but she was waiting by the door when time for next the weeks class came. She ended up taking the final written exam on her 11th birthday and a few weeks later, she did her 4 open water dives wihtout a hitch... I never worried about her physicaly, or emotionally (panicing etc) being able to handle diving, my biggest concern was her ability to retain everything she was learning.

She has proven that concern unfounded. She has only gone diving with me a couple of times since she got certified (she decided she doens't like the local quarry). The times she has been diving, she has shown she not only retained what she learned, but makes diving safely her #1 priority.

As for the sense of achievment she got from it; our LDS has a tradition of gving each student a tee-shirt with a 12" diameter stylized seal with "Certified Scuba Diver" in 1.5" letters when they complete their dives and get their temp. C-Card .... Guess what shirt she wore to school the next day??

All of this said, I should point out that she is the youngest of my 3 children. My middle child is 3-1/2 years older than her, and today (1-1/2 years later) I am still not sure he's mature enough at 16 to get certified (if he wanted to). Her oldest brother ended up gettign certified and doign his OW dives the same day she did. He was almost 22 at the time and I think he is a good diver, but I dont think he would &/or could have been at her age. The bottom line is you know your son, if you think he's ready, let him go for it! Find an instructor you trust and if at any point they say he's not ready, or needs extra work, listen to them.... this is not a sport where parents should lobby on behalf of their children