If you had a young son or daughter, which agency would you have them train with, irrespective of the instructor chosen? In other words, if the instructor was to teach to the minimum standards of the agency, which agency's training philosophy do you feel would prepare your child the best for local conditions? Why? Please be as specific as you can.
My response has two parts: (1) the agency; and (2) adolescent psychology.
As per adolescent psychology, the concept of personal mortality is abstract until a person reaches about 25 years of age. Of course they know that everyone must die, and that people can die, but they do not
truly believe that
they are capable of dying any time
soon. For this reason, I believe that if my kids begin to dive before, say, 25 years of age, I will want some competent instructor to
drill their skills into a high degree of competency. To be clear, I believe that young divers can be very highly technically competent, but they may not weight their own mortality with suitable gravity when faced with a split-second decision.
The preceding paragraph on adolescent psychology is the basis for my choice of certification agency. If I am forced to stay away from commenting on the competence of an individual instructor, I would have to opt to choose the agency with the curriculum which would have the best success of
drilling their relevant scuba skills, especially those concerning safety and decision making, into a high degree of competency, appropriate for the diving conditions they are likely to face. Currently my choice would be limited to either of the two agencies with which I have trained - ACUC and NAUI. What I have read in this post would make me look at other agencies as well (Walter seems to like his agencies, as did Thalassamania). The few PADI divers that I have met, coupled with what I have read in this post and verified by checking out their website, have led me to decide that my kids won't be PADI-certified.
One final note - I will make it clear to my kids from the start that I expect them to train at least until scuba rescue diver - not stop at basic OW.