Pitching skydiving/wingsuiting to worried parents?

[Zirngibism 0]

Hi, all!

I've never skydived before, but joined because I'm interested in doing so.

Unfortunately, my parents have some preconceived notions about the sport. (I have a feeling that they think that it's the most dangerous and life-threatening thing one could possibly do second to attempting suicide ). I've been doing some reading on the web, and, upon finding out that it's not nearly as risky and lethal as uninformed people think, have been thinking about the best way to convince my parents of this.
I'm afraid if I Just tell my parents "I want to skydive" without instantly flooding them with reassurance, they will instantly close their minds to any enlightening facts about it.


I'm aware of the (if controversial) statistic that you have a higher chance of dying driving a car than skydiving. Does anyone have any more facts like this one?
Also, they know I ski, and I have a feeling that skiing has a higher injury/fatality rate than skydiving. Can anyone confirm this?


But I also want a firmer case than that. I intend to show them the website of the drop zone closest to where I live and all it does in regards to lessons and safety gear.



So my point of this post is to ask if anyone has a general strategy/rule of thumb for convincing slightly overprotective parents. I do realize that all parents and relationships with them differ widely so maybe this isn't even worth asking, but I thought I'd give it a shot.

(Sorry if you get this question a lot on these boards...)

[justintime1983 0]

Umm are you old enough to do this without a signature?

If so just let them know whats up later, like after jumping but before the wingsuit.

I keep telling my friends skydiving will fix all your problems, Im a fibber you just let go a minute at a time. Choose what to do with it.

[Baksteen 84]

Unfortunately, the thing about driving and skydiving is bullshit.
The only thing they have in common is that you can take certain precautions to make it safer for you.

In the beginning, I would certainly not mention wingsuiting and all that; you'll not be doing that kinda stuff for quite a while anyway as you first have to meet the basic requirements.

Instead, focus on the safety aspects of the sport.
First, in the netherlands you have to take a medical examination every two years or until you achieve the B-licence specifically approving one for skydiving.

Second, there is a ground class which may take up to eight hours, in which you'll learn the basics about gear, how to determine whether the canopy above your head is landable, how to solve malfunctions, the drilling of emergency procedures (EPs) etc.

Now I do not know about the US, but at my Dutch DZ we had to "prove" that we had understood the basics as taught to us both by taking a written test and being suspended from the ceiling in a parachute harness and performing the EPs based on scenarios the instructor would hand us. This practical exam must be repeated every three months until one achieves one's C-licence.

Only when we managed to satisfy them were we allowed into the plane.
Once in the air you are not allowed to jump out of the plane until the instructor has determined the plane is in the correct location.
If you're doing AFF there will be two very experienced instructors with you to make sure you do your stuff correctly and if necessary to assist with opening the parachute. Once it's open you're on your own though..

As to gear, there is stuff that can make life (or keep living ) a bit easier for you, like skyhooks, RSLs, AADs, not jumping small canopies or elliptical ones too soon etc. Look these terms up.

It's also worthwhile to mention that a reserve parachute may not be packed by anyone but an individual who has had a specific training. These individual are called "riggers", and the rating is by no means easy to achieve.

First and foremost though, none of what I have written above will guarantee that you survive on any given skydive, malfunction or no - only YOU can do that by keeping a cool head and acting as you were taught.

Think about whether you really, really, really want to skydive and make sure that you can explain why. All the stuff about precautions and safety are just spices to make the story more palatable. Skydiving CAN maim or kill you - and will if you are overconfident.

"That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport."
~mom

[Zirngibism 0]

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Umm are you old enough to do this without a signature?

If so just let them know whats up later, like after jumping but before the wingsuit.

Yeah, I'm 19 which I think is old enough.
The problem is that I'm not fully independent from my parents. I'm a college student without my own transportation, and still rely on them financially. They're able to see my bank account and my card charges, etc...

I've been open with them about everything my entire life, and don't want to break their confidence and trust. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

[justintime1983 0]

man your training is like super long. US tandem, 5 hour ground school, AFF1 fail, AFF1 fail, ect.

No just Kidding, but really you guys have three months of ground school?

I keep telling my friends skydiving will fix all your problems, Im a fibber you just let go a minute at a time. Choose what to do with it.

[justintime1983 0]

Sorry man left me parents wing at 16, wish I coulda stayed though.

I keep telling my friends skydiving will fix all your problems, Im a fibber you just let go a minute at a time. Choose what to do with it.

[Baksteen 84]

Nope repeated every three months until you achieve your C-licence, however long it takes you.
No tandem for us though.. (not compulsory anyway)

"That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport."
~mom

[justintime1983 0]

Yeaaah I knew I read that wrong, right after the post.

I keep telling my friends skydiving will fix all your problems, Im a fibber you just let go a minute at a time. Choose what to do with it.

[DrewEckhardt 0]

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Yeah, I'm 19 which I think is old enough.
The problem is that I'm not fully independent from my parents. I'm a college student without my own transportation, and still rely on them financially. They're able to see my bank account and my card charges, etc...

A healthy start on skydiving is about $20,000 in the first three years (student program, used gear, jumpsuits, 500 jumps, some training and travel). That's in the United States. Other countries are more expensive.

Get through school, find a career, have fun, and your parents will get over it.

Statistically speaking you're more likely to get injured skiing and die skydiving. Fatal skydiving plane crashes are also more common than fatal ski lift accidents.

[Peej 0]

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A healthy start on skydiving is about $20,000 in the first three years (student program, used gear, jumpsuits, 500 jumps, some training and travel). That's in the United States. Other countries are more expensive.

Get through school, find a career, have fun, and your parents will get over it.

To the OP: that's a good no-nonsense cost estimate from Drew there.

Just remember when you do get into the sport you need to accept that while there have been major advancements in gear and the sport as whole in the last 20 years, there is still an inherent risk involved in the sport. Don't sugar coat things with your parents, they could lose a child to this sport, many parents have. Like tonto used to say: "The ground is hard and it doesn't care, it never will."

Still, that said, i wouldn't change anything that has happened to me over the years, the friends i've made are ones i will never forget.

edited to add: this is a post i made about skydiving safety 3 years ago after i broke myself, lost a friend and was worried about a close friend who was in hospital after a BASE accident.

http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1294312;page=unread#unread

Advertisio Rodriguez / Sky

[nigel99 143]

How many car or ski-sites have a fatality database on them?

Hopefully that answers your question about whether this is a dangerous sport. You can make yourself safer (not safe) by avoiding swooping, small canopies and other more dangerous disciplines (wingsuiting included)

Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

[justintime1983 0]

Just do a tandem, see what you think after that. Yes its fun!!! But its like getting into a cold pool on a hot summer day. Stick your toe in first.

I keep telling my friends skydiving will fix all your problems, Im a fibber you just let go a minute at a time. Choose what to do with it.

[cjsgrlsx3 0]

I completely agree with justintime1983. I did 6 tandems before I started AFF. I do not regret any of them. There's a lot to learn.

But on to your actual question.............just tell them, maybe they will be more open to it then you think.

[skybytch 259]

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The problem is that I'm not fully independent from my parents. I'm a college student without my own transportation, and still rely on them financially.
I've been open with them about everything my entire life, and don't want to break their confidence and trust.

Skydiving will be there when you are fully independent. If they say no, continue to show them the respect that you have been and wait until you are supporting yourself before you jump.

You might consider taking them out to the local dz to spend some time watching and talking to people (especially the instructors). Seeing skydiving in person may be enough to change their minds.

Good luck!

[Halfpastniner 0]

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Umm are you old enough to do this without a signature?

If so just let them know whats up later, like after jumping but before the wingsuit.

Yeah, I'm 19 which I think is old enough.
The problem is that I'm not fully independent from my parents. I'm a college student without my own transportation, and still rely on them financially. They're able to see my bank account and my card charges, etc...

I've been open with them about everything my entire life, and don't want to break their confidence and trust. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

My mom told me if i started jumping she woudnt pay for college.

I called her bluff Now off to class.....

BASE 1384

[Andy9o8 0]

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So my point of this post is to ask if anyone has a general strategy/rule of thumb for convincing slightly overprotective parents.

I say this not to be cynical or alarmist, but as my genuine opinion from personal experience: I think trying to convince your parents that it's "ok" for you to skydive is a wasted effort - it simply won't work. I say this as someone who started jumping at age 18 , and now my own kids are your age. As a parent myself, I've experienced what non-parents have not: the overwhelming, visceral fear of any of my children dying during my lifetime, and the instinctive tendency to do anything, say anything to prevent that from happening. It's an incredibly powerful force, and it almost never can be overcome with reason, logic or intellect.

One basic truth about skydiving is that EVERY time you engage in the activity, even if you do everything right, you could die. Don't kid yourself with analogies to other activities - this holds true with skydiving more than ALMOST any other activity. And in the highly unlikely - but still not completely impossible - event of a 100% failure - i.e., truly catastrophic malfunctions - of both your main and reserve equipment on a jump from an airplane, you WILL die - not MIGHT, but WILL. Your parents, even if they know next to nothing about modern civilian sport parachuting (or the fact that jumper error, and not equipment failure, causes most fatalities), are intuitively aware of this one basic truth. And, if you try somehow to deny that basic truth to them, they will know intuitively that you're full of it. If your parents are, as you say, overprotective of you, there is no way they will ever get past this: it's dangerous, and their child could die.

After about my 4th or 5th jump, I informed my dad and older sister that I was skydiving. (I knew that if I told them of my intention before my 1st jump, they'd try anything to stop me.) When I did tell them, they were, predictably, vehemently opposed to it. There was no way to reason them out of it. So, I simply never discussed it with them any more. We never told my mom about it at all until about 15 years later.

I've heard some jumpers advise new or prospective students to take their parents to the drop zone as a way to ease their concerns. Well, that might work for some, I'll allow that. But for others, it won't - if they're adamantly opposed to it (or intractably fearful of it), what they'll fixate on is watching that little black dot falling away from the plane (jumpers in freefall as seen from the ground), speeding closer and closer to the ground, with the parachute opening with just a few seconds to spare to snatch the jumper from the jaws of certain death. I've seen at least one mom put her face in her hands and run to the car after seeing that; it does happen. And remember, that a serious injury or fatality can happen at any DZ on any day. If that just happens to occur when your parents are there - well, so much for that idea. (It's the reason why I never invited my own parents to the DZ.)

Personally, and quite simply, if your parents are as I think they are, I'd advise you to do one of 2 things: either do it behind their backs and conceal it from them any way you can, or wait until you are, and are likely to remain, completely financially independent of them.

[airdvr 197]

You'll never, ever "convince" them. Just go for it and tell them later. They'll just end up worrying themselves to death over you.

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[BDashe 0]

Taken a bunch of friends for tandems and sat in with their parents when they showed em the video. One of my buddy's moms actually hit me. Dad's usually think it is cool. Just make one jump, dont tell em, see if you like it and then throw stats at em:

more cumulitive fatalities:
driving
motorcycles
scuba diving
skiing
edit: BOREDOM +1 shropshire

After my first skydive (tandem) i came home and told my mom, she wasn't happy. She said 'well at least you got it out of your system.' 3.5 years later i think she just ignores that I do it and pretends it doesnt happen. My dad just tells everyone I jumped naked to find humor in it, but he was an army ranger with some static line jumps so he sort of gets it.

Anyway, it's your life so do what you wish, but if you need to wait a bit til your out of the house and on your own do that and find a wind tunnel in the mean time- biggest crack pipes on the planet. And HAVE FUN!!!

So there I was...

Making friends and playing nice since 1983

[shropshire 0]

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Taken a bunch of friends for tandems and sat in with their parents when they showed em the video. One of my buddy's moms actually hit me. Dad's usually think it is cool. Just make one jump, dont tell em, see if you like it and then throw stats at em:

more cumulitive fatalities:
driving
motorcycles
scuba diving
skiing

You could add boredom to your list too

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[Croc 0]

Wait until you are financially independent. If you are serious about jumping, get a job at the DZ. Learn to pack and pay your own way.

Skydiving is extremely dangerous and cannot be made safe. That is a fact.

"Here's a good specimen of my own wisdom. Something is so, except when it isn't so."

Charles Fort, commenting on the many contradictions of astronomy

[pchapman 261]

Other posts already pointed out some of the big caveats about parents protecting their kids, that there are real risks, and that if you aren't financially independent, you may not get what you want. (You'll also be able to find previous dz.com threads about convincing parents or partners or employers, that one isn't crazy or suicidal.)

Nevertheless, if trying to convince parents, one can focus on things like these:

-- Show high quality videos of the sport - Skydiving can be very photogenic and video can help explain why anyone would want to jump.

-- Show that there are rules. The USPA's Skydiver's Information Manual available online is over 200 pages long...

-- A big part of the sport is the concept of a mature and disciplined approach to risks and decision making.
(This of course can be contradicted by some of the things we do in practice, whether in the sky or especially around the camp fire, but the point is still valid.)

-- Further down the road, if you are skydiving, you may get to know some people at the dz to use as examples. While level of education doesn't determine ability to skydive, it may help for parents to understand that the sport isn't full of devil may care yahoos drifting through life. It is also a sport picked by well educated professionals. (Mind you, so is Himalayan mountaineering, and that doesn't always work out so well.)

[tdog 0]

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A healthy start on skydiving is about $20,000 in the first three years (student program, used gear, jumpsuits, 500 jumps, some training and travel). That's in the United States. Other countries are more expensive.

Get through school, find a career, have fun, and your parents will get over it.

Statistically speaking you're more likely to get injured skiing and die skydiving. Fatal skydiving plane crashes are also more common than fatal ski lift accidents.

I cry a huge bull-shit... The most common student I have worked with thus far is in the 20-25 year crowd. Between managing their jump quantity, working as packers, sharing costs - they seem to be able to afford it. Heck, four friends got their AFF rating while being college students, and four others came within fighting distance of the fully sponsored military teams, self funded, at collegiate nationals, with one guy taking overall 1st place at a canopy event beating the military teams.

Yes, two AFF instructors were military academy students, but that is all the more proof you can do it on a tight budget as they are not allowed to have jobs and found ways to use their $400 per month "salary" spending money to make it happen....

Another college student is very proficient at head down, and two years ago we had some rather large bigways at the MOAB and Eloy boogies with majority of them being students.

I could show you video of another student and I doing some pretty wicked wingsuiting...

And I know of two students who had enough experience to be qualified for a legit BASE FJC and used their dorm rooms to pack their rigs and celebrated their summer after graduating in Europe.

To the original poster, I say - if you want to skydive, get educated, and do it. The money will come if you want to.

Life is too short to "wait" for every opportunity because "now is not the perfect time."

As the lyrics of a rather popular trance-song-background sample goes: "Son, it is better to regret something you Have done, than regret something you haven't done."

[danielcroft 2]

The mature thing to do would be to talk to them directly about it and be honest about the risks/rewards. Given that they're supporting you financially, they have the option to "pull your funding". Look at ways you can afford it on your own. Show some initiative and get some cash together on your own if you can. I'd suggest doing your tandem *own your own money* and then talking to them about it.

Having 3 younger sisters and putting you in their place (but no kids) I'd be more comfortable if you were approaching skydiving seriously and not like it was the latest fad (not saying you are). That means being realistic about it and working out a plan. Check to see if your school has a skydiving club, if so, that may lend some credibility to your desires. Make sure your plan includes continuation of study.

[Andy9o8 0]

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The mature thing to do would be to talk to them directly about it and be honest about the risks/rewards.

A rule of thumb for life: Never ask permission unless you're prepared to accept the answer, "No."

[danielcroft 2]

"It's better to ask forgiveness than permission"

Agreed but, given the financial situation, that'd be their right.