So you want to take your kid diving...

[DandyDon]

Uh ... Don ??? ... it's an internet forum. It's all personal opinion. I think what you meant to say was people who expressed opinions that didn't agree with your own.


... so are you now hijacking your own thread?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Mostly wanted to see his sources. He didn't post opinions.

 

[SnorkelLA]

I don't think that incidents involving young people diving should become reason for people to make blanketing generalizations about these situations. My 13 year old nephew quite nearly saved my life on a dive when my regulator first stage had a malfunction, cutting off my air. It's just as much the parent/guardian's job to remain calm and asses the situation as many people say the child's is. We both did this and I am able to tell you that I would trust him under any circumstance. Not because he has proved something to me, but that I knew him well enough to know that he could handle these situations.

It's the parent's own fault if they aren't experienced enough or observant enough to know if their own child is mature enough to handle the stress of a situation. In this case, it was reversed. It is not the child's fault his parent died of carelessness, and I think that this incident is horrible, but we need to remember why the man died: his own carelessness. This thread should not be about how a child should or should not be introduced to diving, but moreso about how an incident like this could be avoided.

The child should be left out of this in my opinion, because from what I read he had no direct involvement in the fathers death. My condolences go out to the family

 

[vladimir]

The Ten Most Dangerous Sports for Kids - DivineCaroline

I guess everybody has a different perception of danger. My parents were happy they got us to adulthood alive, walking, and with our brains intact; visits to the emergency room for knees, ribs, clavicles, etc. didn't register on the "danger" scale.

 

[fjpatrum]

I had more stitches by the time I was 10 than most adults I know have had. I've also broken all my fingers, all my toes, a couple ribs, my nose, my cheek, an ankle and an elbow. Only one of those occurred after the age of 18 and only 2 after the age of 16. Kids are supposed to be active and if diving is an appropriate activity for a particular kid, then they should be offered the opportunity to try it, in my opinion. Then again, I had my daughter "rock climbing" at 1 year old because we couldn't afford a babysitter and she wanted to do it too. Similarly she had her own kayak at 7 years old.

Each child is an individual. Some take well to "high stress" activities and some don't. It's best for the parent to understand their own child's interests and abilities and make decisions based upon the individual.

 

[CuracaoJ]

Don,

The chart that I posted came from here: re: The Relative Risk of SCUBA Diving

The other information came from other places that I can't find again without repeating the work. I didn't keep source notes. I can tell you that I was looking at wiki, and all of their links, especially in RE to mortality rates for driving, some links were quoting DoT stats, some websites looked to be insurance company related (both mostly from the US.) As I said in my former post, I wouldn't give any of those sources a ton of credence. I'm a bit of an old fashioned academic, and internet sighting, without firm sourcing is sort of a no-no to me, which is why I stated to take it for what it was worth. I do know one of the Google searches that I did was "comparative mortality rates," and I went a good 10 - 15 pages into links to try and find some that were breaking it down by hours spent in activity so I could, at least somewhat, compare apples to apples. Other information also came from people that were quoting DAN, including a lot of links to ScubaBoard. But again, I wouldn't take any of that for Gospel.

All I can tell you is that from what I was able to piece together, IMO as it were, it appeared to me from at least 4 different approaches that the 4x factor seemed to be relatively consistent. However, at the end of the day I didn't seem to find anything that I would call reliable, academically approachable, global stats that would be definitive.

As I originally stated though, even at 4x more "dangerous" I wouldn't trade spending time with my son diving for something less dangerous. The memories and experiences we share diving together here in Curacao will be things that we cherish for a lifetime.

Safe diving,
Jeff

 

[DandyDon]

Thanks Jeff. No info on pedestrians, but appreciate the work and info as well.

And I don't mean to discourage anyone from sharing the sport with their kids, not at all - life is for living, along with the risks and learning experiences, including bandages & casts. As noted in the beginning here, it's not as simple as "Don't worry because I'll be there all the time and will not let anything happen to my child" - which we do see frequently here. It's been good to compare risk assessments and views on all this, but I think that some still missed a major point: If something happens to the parent, s/he has a kid for a buddy - and that's a lot to put off on them unless well prepared as a few have posted.

At least no one is trying to derail the discussion with "Diving is as safe as driving" so thanks for that input!