How deep should a child go?

Gene_Hobbs

I hate to open the year+ old thread back up but we just added the following papers I thought were worth posting.

Vandenhoven G, Collard F, Schamp E. Children and diving: medical aspects. Eight years’ sports medical follow-up of the first scuba diving club for children in Belgium. SPUMS J 2003; 33: 70-73. RRR ID: 7774

Cvitanovich, A, Langton, P. Children and diving: a paediatric perspective. SPUMS J 2003; 33(2) (Editorial) RRR ID: 7775

Davis FM. Decompression sickness in a 14-year-old diver. SPUMS J 2003; 33: 75-76 RRR ID: 7776

Assessing children’s fitness for scuba diving. SPUMS J 2003; 33(2) (Letter to Editor, Medical Journal of Australia) Published as: Walker RM. Assessing children’s fitness for scuba diving. MJA 2002; 176: 450. RRR ID: 7777

Walker RM. How old is old enough? SPUMS J 2003; 33(2): 78-80. RRR ID: 7778

Children in diving: how young is too young? SPUMS J 2003; 33(2) (Editorial) Reprinted with kind permission of PADI International from The Undersea Journal, 1999; 4th quarter: 88-92. RRR ID: 7779

Richardson D. Children and diving: the recreational-diving training perspective. SPUMS J 2003; 33(2): 83-89. (NOTE: Article followed by book review of "Children and scuba diving: a resource guide for instructors and parents." Reviewed by Taylor, L) RRR ID: 7780

BTW - We reached 7,000 items in the RRR today!!! :)

kevin stone

What's the point?
My son and daughter started diving at 10 and have their PADI junior Ow
They have always been just as interested in diving at 10' as 30' (our self imposed limit) if they are happy then so am I.
I see no need to venture any more into the unknown than necessary to accomplish the training needed for them both there is a whole adult lifetime to do deep stuff I see no upside only down.
Just my thoughts
Kevin

Andy Del

Well, there's been a whole lot of talk about the physiological 'risks' of diving, but no one has mentioned the phychological side. (Sorry if it's in the rubicon links - I haven't look at them yet)

Many adolescents are simply not suitable for diving yet. By nature, at their point of physiological development cannot assess risk, lack the maturity to follow instruction, tend to challenge authority as they experiment with boundaries, will resist working repeatedly at more difficult tasks (such as mask clearing / removal), have less skill at monitoring the passage of time, tend to daydream a lot more, and are more ego centred than adults.

There is a plethora of information on this out there in academia.

While I'm not instructing anymore, and foolishly toyed with the idea of getting diving introduced as a sport where I teach, I quickly changed my mind a decided to never teach an adolescent unless properly vetted and then on a one to one basis.

vincnt moore

After reading through this post, I'm wondering if I'm doing my son an injustice by letting him dive with me. I have to weigh out the pros and cons of what he is in to and what he will get him self into with out my guidance. When you have a very active kid that likes to challenge life in every aspect I think that supportive guidance in dangerous activities is better than unsupported deadly life long bad habits that could develop unchecked.
Meaning! The issue is diving and affects on youth. But what about other sports that are much more immediately harmfully evident. My neighbors son plays la-cross and that boy is constantly busted up. Football in schools causes many serious injuries. Last year a boy was killed playing baseball when hit in the chest with the ball stopping his heart. My son has been boxing since he was 7 yrs old and is now 12. He is a registered ammeter boxer, has straight A's in school, takes karate 3 days a week and dives when it suits him. He goes hunting with friends ( I don't hunt anymore ). I feel that of all things he wants to do "DIVING "is the least of my worries.
So if we all worried about falling off a flat world where would we be?

infinite_viz

Which some people might find shocking, but is in line with current practices...:D

rolanddiver

The way I see this is a little different from the opinions above. I truly believe that Dr Mitchell knows more about this stuff than we all together will ever know. I think where the problem lies is that scuba teaching agencies decided to lower the age limit simply because they wanted to make more money and not because they invested millions of dollars in research that proved their decison is safe. I 'm just would love to see the data this decision was based on, because I'm not sure they have ever contacted any experts such as Dr Mitchell to find out wether it is safe or not. It always makes me smile when I read or hear "non-profit organization". I'm sure that we all agree that ain't nothing is free in life.

Very Respectfully

Roland

Freef

I've taught 12 year olds to dive [group of four and only once] and they were a lot better than many adults. They didn't know it all and did as they were told.

The problems have been previously mentioned: can they handle the weight of the kit, can they look after their own gauges and can they be a good buddy. If it takes 2 adults to look after one child then I would say that child shouldn't be in the water. Then again, you can say this of disabled divers, particularly amputees.

One of my ex girlfriends and still semi regular dive buddy hasn't a hope in hell of towing me a long way or lifting me physically.

Finally, the references to the pearl divers doesn't really apply as they are breath hold rather than scuba users.

nigelh

I still stand with my post of a year ago. Diving is reasonably safe and if we protect a child from every risk we deprive them of a lot of things and do them a disservice.

I've just done the doting Grandfather thing for a tenth birthday present and if for twelve I was asked for Scuba lessons I'd want to check out the instructor but I'd pay.

__________________
nigelh

mempilot

I just watched Dr. Taylor's Powerpoint presentation. I hope there is more content in the talking notes than there is in the 60-some slide presentation, because there is really only a handful of useful slides. There seems to be a lot of rhetoric about legalities and overdramatization; however, the few good points surrounding the differences in equalization and possibly PFO's is good and deserves a slideshow in itself. The rest is soapbox and a waste of digital paper (again, I hope the talking points had more substance). I've given flying lessons to children (not solo'd them), and some do very well with complex thought process. Others, well, they probably won't be anything more than janitors in their futures. The point being that in the mental/comprehension/reasoning side of things, not all children are on the same playing field. I totally disagree with the legal aspects of risk management when it comes to children. I look back to what I did as a kid. When it comes to medical reasons for not letting them dive, there is probably something there, and therefore the few slides that deal with this are decent. Alex, I'm not sure I'd point people to this Powerpoint presentation without having more substance available to fill in all the huge blanks and thought process behind his slides.

MatV

To the set of child related problems, I'd add bone growth problems caused by overload. The joint near ends of bones are very susceptible to that. Overload may impede length growth.

As to psychologic, some have denoted problems with judgement etc, others have had splendid examples of children behaving rational, showing quick repsonse, and good judgement.

Both are right, and that's the problem. As children grow up, there systems do not grow up in phase sync. There are periods of length growth, and periods of growing up mindwise. These are alternating, as if a substantial growth in one area needs all the resources available. E.g., a rational thinking, following orders child of 8 years may develop unsubstantiated fears in subsequent years when bone growth is prominent.

It is the trainers, teachers, you name it , duty to know which period they are in, and act accordingly.

Matthias