My 8 year old son did Bubblemaker today. It went well. He had a very patient instructor which helped.
That’s great. A patient instructor and lots of positive reinforcement are key with kids. It needs to be fun, not frustrating.
A positive experience and he is keen to get in to diving now. He removed his regulator underwater and replaced it without drama.
That’s a great sign. Shows comfort in the water, which I feel is a key trait for divers of all ages. My daughters never did Bubble Blower or equivalent, but both were certified at 10. I got to dive along with both.
With my oldest, I was watching from a distance as they did the skills portion on dive 1. As I had nothing better to do at the time, I was wondering how she would do in an actual regulator retrieval. It’s one thing to remove a regulator on demand, it’s something else to suddenly find that the regulator is no longer in your mouth. I got my answer to how she would react the next day.
After the skills were done, the students were touring the site. I was her buddy, and just behind. A student in front of her accidentally knocked her reg out of her mouth. It went into free flow behind her. I fought every parental instinct to save her as I really wanted to see how she would handle it. She did the arm sweep, but did not come up with it, she then grabbed her octo, purged and resumed breathing. That’s what I wanted to see, so I helped her get her primary, stop the reflow and swap. She handled it pretty much perfectly.
After the dive, I congratulated her on the unplanned regulator retrieval drill. Her instructor did the same. She just seemed confused at the congratulations. She just responded like it was no big deal. She even said something to the effect of, “What else was I going to do?”
