Daughter had bad experiences in pool / too big a class size/ more questions

[JamesK]

With all due respect you need to back up and let the girl stand on her own two feet. She is 20 after all. Why isn't she posting this? OMG.

Sorry I'm a high school teacher and I have to deal with this stuff all the time. I would suggest that she watch the youtube video of the commencement address about not being special.
'You're Not Special' Graduation Speech - YouTube

Now that is done. I would suggest she seek a smaller class size and discuss the issues with the instructor. Your terminology of "exploded" sounds quite like you are attempting to Garner sympathy for the situation. I have yet to hear of a BCD exploding. I'm sure there will be others with more tact that come along. And I guarantee there will be others with less as well.

Sent from my DROID X2

Without knowing the situation, maybe we should just comment on the post, and not about her daughters ability to stand on her own two feet. Maybe her daughter has no access to a computer. Who knows? Also, remember this is the flame free forum.


OP< what part of Florida are you talking about? Maybe someone here can recommend a instructor or even help themselves.

 

[nimoh]

your daughter could do a discover scuba on her trip, there is lots to see on a shallow reef.

As for certification, I agree with all that said seek out a different instructor/smaller class. This post reminds me of a thread a while back on Groupon discounts for dive training...discount the price and pack them in to make a profit.

 

[supergaijin]

If she is happy at depths of 30ft, then she's a prime candidate for PADI Scuba Diver (or other agency's equivalent), as opposed to doing the full OW. Later when she's confident and if she wants, she can try the OW again. She's 20- I reckon she's still got a couple of good years left in her.

I would suggest she would benefit from an afternoon of one on one with a female instructor. Sounds like a good 'father to daughter' present.

 

[kimanjo]

We parents "bought" this scuba class as a birthday gift to our daughter. We parents did not research the scuba shop nor ask the right questions. We just saw the "special promo" being advertised and paid for the class.

Why did our daughter not do the research, etc? Well, first, you don't know what you don't know, and how would she be able to evaluate her needs, as a newbie, for a dive course? She was away at college, and we said we would handle it here in our hometown, so she would be able to come back home in the summer and take the course. This was our gift to her. And of course she assumed that with both parents being certified divers (albeit we stopped diving a long, long time ago) that we knew what we were doing in selecting a dive shop.

She is feeling guilty about "wasting" our money. She is feeling like a failure.

About the gear exploding, I'm not sure it did just that, but she said it sounded like shotgun going off, and it was two separate incidents. Regardless, this just shouldn't be happening with gear--or should it? You tell me.

 

[mdax]

In my opinion that was instructor failure, not daughter failure. I'd send her to Doug Mudry or Dan Patterson at EE for a day of additional learning and comfort building if I was Dad. Some one on one time with an instructor that will take the time to explain everything to her satisfaction will build confidence and safe habits quickly.

 

[JamesK]

We parents "bought" this scuba class as a birthday gift to our daughter. We parents did not research the scuba shop nor ask the right questions. We just saw the "special promo" being advertised and paid for the class.

Why did our daughter not do the research, etc? Well, first, you don't know what you don't know, and how would she be able to evaluate her needs, as a newbie, for a dive course? She was away at college, and we said we would handle it here in our hometown, so she would be able to come back home in the summer and take the course. This was our gift to her. And of course she assumed that with both parents being certified divers (albeit we stopped diving a long, long time ago) that we knew what we were doing in selecting a dive shop.

She is feeling guilty about "wasting" our money. She is feeling like a failure.

About the gear exploding, I'm not sure it did just that, but she said it sounded like shotgun going off, and it was two separate incidents. Regardless, this just shouldn't be happening with gear--or should it? You tell me.

I think you made a very nice gesture for her. Like I said earlier, she should not feel she wasted anything. If this is through a shop, I would talk to the owner.

 

[dfx]

About the gear exploding, I'm not sure it did just that, but she said it sounded like shotgun going off, and it was two separate incidents. Regardless, this just shouldn't be happening with gear--or should it? You tell me.

It can. We've had a high pressure hose rupture during our course. It was one of the instructor's gear and it happened before he got in the water. Made a big bang. I believe that gear used for pool sessions sometimes isn't in the best condition, the chlorine has a habit of damaging it and some shops don't want to use the "good" gear (the stuff they use for "real" dives) for that.

 

[beaverdivers]

Unfortunately, you are the victim of a cheap dive class.

A private lesson(s) is the best solution to over come this problem.

Pay top dollar for the best instruction.

The result will be a comfortable diver.
Fortunately, your daughter is intelligent and recognizes that she needs more training.

Many students that are the product of the " $99.00 " SCUBA course aren't as smart.

They either quit or are the bad divers out there that never learned correctly from the start.

They are dangerous to the reef and other divers.

The culprits of these cheap SCUBA classes should be run out of town.

At the least you should get your money back.

As far as the gear, it is goes with the class: Cheap gear that has not been replaced or serviced! Just a guess.

 

[TSandM]

This sounds like a bit of a disaster -- there is no reason for someone who is a comfortable snorkeler and skin diver to have a panic experience in the pool on Scuba.

And although it's clear that there was a numbers problem with this class (which I'm assuming was inexpensive, because you said it was a "special"), I don't entirely blame you guys. Most people don't know there is a difference in diving classes -- at least I didn't, when I signed up for mine. I signed up for it because it was given through a shop three minutes from my house. I didn't even talk to any other shops. I think that's unfortunately very common.

I do think she should try again, but not with the outfit you used. E-learning might be an excellent way for her to work at her own pace, especially since she has had some introduction to the material before. Also, a one-on-one Discover Scuba session might give her the time to relax and play in the pool and get past the bad experience.

There are much better classes than the one described.

 

[SeaHorse81]

Your daughter did nothing wrong. It could be argued that she didn't even make a mistake in failing to research the instructor and class because, although those are excellent things to do, hardly anyone new to the sport realizes it needs to be done. People tend to just trust the professional, perhaps more so in something like diving which is so thoroughly foreign to one's other life experience.

The valuable lesson here then, which is a critical one in diving, is to not just blindly trust anyone. Your daughter can't be faulted for doing it once, because just about every diver does it once, if not many times. If she takes this lesson to heart and now does her homework on researching instruction, arranging for whatever time and respecting whatever limits she needs to in order to feel comfortable and move forward, then it will be a lesson that serves her very well through a long, happy life of diving.

I do hope she logs onto SB herself, so we can all say hello and give her some much needed moral support. She'll need to apply her own critical thinking and judgment to what she sees on SB, of course, but that will be good practice for doing so out in the real world of diving.