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What's the minimum age to begin dive training?  Twelve.

What's the minimum age to begin dive training? It's never too early to start, at least with the snorkelling part and that could be argued to be a prelude to dive training. I started Josh's training when he was at the ripe old age of 3 which coincidentally was when he started snorkelling.  His first lesson was rule #1 which he not only recites but understands, along with his rule #2 (don't hold your breathe) and rule #3 (always breathe normally). He's now 4.5 and has some knowledge about regulators, dive computers, pressure, ear clearing, BCs, tanks/etc.  He needs to work on mask clearing and do a better job at equalizing.  I started teaching him the tables last week (he actually was looking at his dive book and asked me about them). He has done about half a dozen confined water (pool) dives but only one open water dive and that was limited to about 10-12'.  It lasted a good 45 minutes and he wanted to stay down longer (it was dinner time). Since he's obviously too small to carry his own BC/tank (even a pony) I put him on the end of a 7' hose and kept one hand in contact with him at all times.  He'll probably be on the end of that 7' hose for a couple more years, but as he grows a little I'll give him a small weight belt to make him neutral (he's slightly positive right now) and give him a little more leeway, judging how much is appropriate as time goes on. I doubt I'll let him venture deeper than 20-30' until he's in the 8-12 year old range but I plan to keep my eye on the literature to see what comes out and continually reassess his skills.  I've been in touch with several other people who have let their children start diving in the 6+ year time _frame_, ALL of whom were very cautious but some didn't want to go public for fear of ridicule.  All were very careful in their training and from what I've seen their children are probably more competant divers when they're certified at 12 than most people who have been diving a number of years. -Carl-

I doubt I'll let him venture deeper than 20-30' until he's in the 8-12 year old range but I plan to keep my eye on the literature to see what comes out and continually reassess his skills.  I've been in touch with several other people who have let their children start diving in the 6+ year time _frame_, ALL of whom were very cautious but some didn't want to go public for fear of ridicule.  All were very careful in their training and from what I've seen their children are probably more competant divers when they're certified at 12 than most people who have been diving a number of years. FWIW my younger daughter did 14 SNUBA and 10 fully escorted dives at age 10-11.  She has completed 11 certifed dives including her first night dive in the Red sea. (we did use the hold your buddy by the hand technique for the night dive) She is a very careful and safety concious diver.  On medical advice we keep both girls above 33 ft. Most important thing we did was buy her a full set of equipment, and she got lots of time practicing so that she knows her own equipment very well.  Even with small tanks kids use much less air, but you have to be very careful on the weighting.  this was a problem because the red sea operator's weights came in 2 kilo units.  Small people need smaller weights, so they can balance them.    With a steel tank my daughter needed 2 1/2 kilos. we finally found 2  1 kilo weightsand put a fishing sinker in her BC.   Vince

PADI is 12 also.