Advice wanted for diving with kids

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@AdamRay, only you know your kids. I have 4, all certified just this year (diving for longer than that though). The younger 11 year old, I keep him very close. I don't go deeper than say 20', which is fine. He doesn't like hoods and normally wants to hold my hand (which is awesome). He's usually very excited with it all so honestly he's pretty worn out by the ~ 45 min mark. I agree with @Angelo Farina, the sooner the better, but take it slow... no need to rush, enjoy the 10' - 20' dives with them.

We all just dove the quarry 2 weeks ago. Had a blast, didn't go deeper than 23', didn't need to. If you stay shallow and ease into it, the mistakes that they'll make are no more dangerous than if in a pool. We just go out to have fun, heck sometimes we spend more time on top the water goofing off than we do under, lol.

Above anything else, keep it fun... diving has a serious side, but it should also be a lot of fun. My kids are forever stealing each others fins, looking at each other upside down... seeing how long they can "ride" on the other persons tank before they notice... just silly, clean, fun.. we check air often, we make sure everyone's with each other. It's one of the best investments I've ever made.

Edit: I waited until I was comfortable in the water (3 years) to get anyone certified.... including my wife.
 
@AdamRay, only you know your kids.
This is a very good point. Kids develop at different rates and take to activities differently. Even in the same family.

I have two daughters. They are three years apart. They are biological full sisters, and have lived with the same parents their entire lives. Both have been swimming since before they could walk, so very comfortable in the water. So the Nature and Nurture aspects are as close as they can be. Both got certified at 10 by the same instructors. Yet, they have been very different.

With the oldest, there has never been any encouragement needed. She took to it right away, and was out diving all the other students in her class. During pool sessions, she was practicing buoyancy with the DM while the other students were working more on the drills. She also did an unplanned regulator retrieval during a checkout dive when another student accidentally knocked hers out of her mouth.

The youngest was a bit more nervous and required some encouragement on some dives. Once she did the environment, she was fine. It was just new environments that made her nervous. Pool was fine. Devil’s Den (dark, but clear) made her nervous at first. Ocean dives were the same. To get her on her first ocean dive, I just told her that we would descend and once we hit the bottom (25’), I would ask her if she wanted to go back up. I did that, and she immediately declined. As I suspected, she only needed to see a few fish in that environment to be hooked.

The approach with the two is very different. With the oldest, she required no gentle nudges, and didn’t really require holding her back any. She’s thumbed dives on her own when she wasn’t feeling it. The youngest required a more stepped approach. The important part is to make sure they are safe and having fun.

One thing I would advise against is parent(s) and kid(s) getting certified at the same time. Kids, by the nature of being kids, are generally less mature. The parent may need to step in. That’s made more difficult if the adult diver is a brand new diver as well.
 
I think the parent has to be comfortable being functionally both a solo diver and a rescue diver, and also trust that the children can do the safe thing should the parent have a problem while diving. Can they tow an incapacitated diver? Will they remember to drop your weights for buoyancy? What about a panicked diver who can’t get air? Can they CESA?
 
IIRC, you instruct under S.E.I. and their OW course includes more rescue skill teaching than PADI requires. Is that correct? I mention this because while there's a good deal of overlap amongst some mainstream dive training agencies (e.g.: PADI and SSI), there are some differences. You also cared enough about dive training to literally write a book on it, as linked in your signature.
I'm teaching solely SDI/TDI classes now but my approach and classes have not changed. SDI allows, encourages, and expects the instructor to add to the class and use whatever supplements will make for a safe diver in our local conditions. I'm teaching the same class I have since 2008 with rescue skills, tables, emergency deco procedures using the Navy tables and gas management. If anything I've added to that to include computers.
So while I am exceeding SDI standards, I'm also meeting them by upholding the loved one principle that they go by and giving my students skills and education based training that ensures they do not need the services of a dive pro to go diving. While also keeping in mind that if they don't know that pro, always have a bailout plan in case the pro does something stupid, gets hurt, or disappears.
At the same time I try impart the wisdom to know when a dive is beyond them and getting a pro to go along would be a good idea or to call the dive and find something else to do.
 
I had a bit luxury in that I knew my daughter wanted to learn to dive by the time she was 8 or so. That gave me time to get my Rescue certification, and build redundancies into my own kit.

My daughter does not like to dive cold water, but I have convinced her that it cannot be all travel to nice warm locations, and that local diving is the most important diving.
Our LDS does run an annual March Break trip that is targeted to families like us with diving children. Those trips had taken us to Belize, Cozumel and a couple of trips to Bonaire, and she gets a chance to hang out with and do a lot of diving around other kids that she knows from school and the LDS. OUr "dive trips" are daddy-daughter trips with the LDS group and involve as much diving as we can squeeze in.

Family vacations are different, since my wife does not dive. For family trips, we try and squeeze in one or two days of diving. For these trips, I contact shops and charter operators before we leave, and have a day or two of diving booked before we leave. When my daughter was still a junior diver, I made sure that they knew this. They would put us on boats for sites that were within her capabilities and training. Ever operator that we have gone out with (Florida, San Jose del Cabo, Grenada, Bahamas and more) has been amazing.

Knowing other junior divers locally can also be a big help. My daughter got into a little "race" with one of her friends here to see who could be the first to get their Master Scuba Diver certification. That "race" got her to her Jr Rescue certification, dry suit specialty, etc. a lot faster than she otherwise would have done them. She ended up beating her fried to the goal by about a week...

My daughter has turned into a very good young diver. She has just started university this month, so we will need to find new ways to keep her diving. This picture was taken in 2019 in Tobermory, Ontario when she was 15, a couple of weeks before she turned 16.
IMG_5792.JPG
 
Thank you everyone for the advice and feedback.

Someone mentioned paying a guide $25 per person for a 2 dive boat trip. Another mentioned $110 for group of four for two dives. Is that somewhat standard? There are a few dive masters from my LDS I've become friends with here that we can go with around here, but what is the best way to arrange a guide when we go on trips? Contact a LDS ahead of time, post on SB, etc.

Lastly, to answer a couple of questions / points raised:

1. My wife is not interested in diving with us. She took an intro to scuba course 15 years ago and realized that she has a fear of depths.

2. I understand that taking the AOW course this soon after taking our OW is not ideal. The AOW is on a cruise (Nassau) and this will be the first opportunity to dive somewhere other than a quarry in PA with poor visibility. We all understand that we won't get as much out of the course than if we had more experience, but we are using the course as an opportunity to dive together with good supervision in good conditions.

3. I recognize the "squirrel" tendencies of 12 & 13-year-old boys. My sons follow directions well when we're together doing outdoor activities. I started each of them skiing when they were 3, and the 3 of us have been skiing regularly together since then. So they're used to having a plan and following instructions. But of course they're still 12 & 13.
 
Thank you everyone for the advice and feedback.

Someone mentioned paying a guide $25 per person for a 2 dive boat trip. Another mentioned $110 for group of four for two dives. Is that somewhat standard? There are a few dive masters from my LDS I've become friends with here that we can go with around here, but what is the best way to arrange a guide when we go on trips? Contact a LDS ahead of time, post on SB, etc.

Lastly, to answer a couple of questions / points raised:

1. My wife is not interested in diving with us. She took an intro to scuba course 15 years ago and realized that she has a fear of depths.

2. I understand that taking the AOW course this soon after taking our OW is not ideal. The AOW is on a cruise (Nassau) and this will be the first opportunity to dive somewhere other than a quarry in PA with poor visibility. We all understand that we won't get as much out of the course than if we had more experience, but we are using the course as an opportunity to dive together with good supervision in good conditions.

3. I recognize the "squirrel" tendencies of 12 & 13-year-old boys. My sons follow directions well when we're together doing outdoor activities. I started each of them skiing when they were 3, and the 3 of us have been skiing regularly together since then. So they're used to having a plan and following instructions. But of course they're still 12 & 13.

I highly doubt you'll get anything out of AOW (unless you end up with a great instructor), but just for reference I was OW, AOW, and nitrox cert. by dive #9....so the money grab is alive and well, lol. I was not advanced at the end of that class... I know on paper it makes sense, but reality is my wallet was just slimmer. Honestly your best bet is to get in a body of water with your own gear and some weights and just feel things out, move some weights around. 20 real world dives where you're learning about yourself will do WAAAAAYYYYYYY more for your diving then 5 very rushed half assed dives in AOW. Right out of OW I spent hrs on the bottom of a pool doing just that, working on stuff. I haven't personally ran across anyone needing to see an AOW card. I've been to the St. Lawrence, the Keys, and North Carolina. YMMV, I know some places "require" it in NC...

I'm not sure that I would take AOW on a vacation either, it would take up some of the precious vacation time. I still think your best bet is practice in that dirty quarry as much as you can. Learning to dive and getting good in the quarry means you'll be amazing anywhere else. Think about it.. less viz means your skills need to be better.

Again, only you "know" your kids. If you think they can handle diving, then start out @ 20' and see how it goes. I just took my 11 and 15 year old diving Sat and Sun. We had an amazing time (in a quarry) catching crawfish in 20'-30' of water and feeding them to the fish. I actually had to pull the 11 year old away, he would have stayed forever if he could.
 
2. I understand that taking the AOW course this soon after taking our OW is not ideal. The AOW is on a cruise (Nassau) and this will be the first opportunity to dive somewhere other than a quarry in PA with poor visibility. We all understand that we won't get as much out of the course than if we had more experience, but we are using the course as an opportunity to dive together with good supervision in good conditions.
I agree with Rob. I don’t think you’ll get much out of a vacation based AOW course. You’ll get an opportunity for supervised dives as you mentioned, but that’s about all I would expect. Is there an opportunity to do guided dives without the course?
 
here's a pic of my wife and I taking our 12 year old niece out for her first dive as a certified junior ow diver. We both have rescue certs, and dive locally on the regular, with about a 100 dives each. our niece was privately trained by a couple tech diving instructors that we have both been in the water with, and we trust their skills a bunch. she received exceptional training. With all that said, I'm still glad there was 2 of us with eyes on her, and it will likely stay that way for a while. I'd be slightly nervous diving 1 on 1 with her, let alone wrangling 2. just my 2 psi...
 

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