I worked out most of my philosophy of diving with children with my experience with my daughter. Being a dive operator, my daughter grew up playing in the pool while resort courses were being taught. Like all you children, she wanted to be part of the action and being a very helpful child, would delight in explaining things to adults who didnt quite get it. Needless to say, her four and five year old vocabulary included words like Equalize and Val Salva.
When I would take out the dives, she would snorkel above, I held a dive flag at one end, she held the other end. We would be separated by about ten vertical feet. Day dives or night dives, her enthusiastic tugs on the line as she delighted in pointing things out to me led me to think about her on scuba.
Since no agency would let a child that young dive, I was in uncharted territory. I took a pony bottle, backpack and wing, cut it down to her size and let her play in the pool. She was a great teaching assistant; adults had a hard time being nervous with a seven-eight year old leading the way, down the pool and back.
While snorkeling, I made a game of things I thought she should know. Wed snorkel for miles, and Id tell her I was too tired to get back, she had to help. She thought that was so fun, showing me up and towing me around. I kept adding to the difficulty, she never realized that she was taking the whole rescue course.
By nine, she was joining me on all the shallow dives, on scuba. Ten and eleven, on all the medium dives. She was very organized, each summer she would tell me her limit and plan for next years goals.
I began teaching other children. I made a change of agencies, to SDI, because they provided not only the standards for teaching children, but liability insurance as well.
(SDIs policy is 8 & 9, controlled water only, 10-15 Junior Certification)
Children can make wonderful divers, but there are some things to remember;
Junior certifications specify that the junior diver MUST be buddied with a responsible adult. It is the adults job not to put the child in a situation that is beyond the child. (this is more difficult than you might imagine, children are very efficient go, no-go switches. When a child thinks the dive is beyond them, they are not shy about calling it, and impossible to convince otherwise)
Children dive for their own reasons, and their reasons may not be anything like what an adult is expecting. As an example of this, one of my friends set up his daughters with a couple of pony bottles to play in the pool. They took an entire tea set, chairs, table and all, to the bottom of the pool where they had a tea party!
Children should NOT do much of the diving that adults enjoy! Adults need to put children where the children enjoy. This means calm, clear, shallow, warm water, at least in the beginning.
Children are wonderful students. After all, they are still in their school years and in practice with schooling. As long as the teacher explains things properly, kids get it. Often better than their parents. (I think it was Einstein who said if you cant put it in terms an eight year old can understand, then you dont understand it yourself.)
As to a few other of the comments, (if you are still with me here!)
Being located in a vacation destination, where almost everyone arrives by plane, all the kids can equalize. They just have to understand the easiest way.
There is no physical reason for children not to do shallow dives, the unformed and undeveloped arguments are just people trying to justify an arbitrary age. The age was set by insurance companies and gear manufacturers, not medical authorities.
There are several companies that make kids size gear. I have several sets from a couple of companies. Oceanic makes or made, a junior in two sizes, Sherwood-Genesis makes some extra extra smalls, and AquaLung/Sea Quest has about the best, the Wave Junior extra small. (it is about the only thing I would buy from that company, but that is another thread.) Bare and Henderson make childs sizes in wetsuits. Hendersons Hyperstretch even allows for room to grow. Small mouthpieces (or bite-pieces as I prefer to call them) can be put on any regulator. Fins and masks are available from many companies, we Akona, but also like TUSA.
As my parting shot,
While so many people harp about the dangers of scuba, the fact of the matter is that scuba has a lower accident rate than bowling! (according to the US insurance companies) The scuba accident rate is WAY lower than golf, tennis, touch football, or soccer. That does not even begin to compare with any activity where wheels are involved, rollerblades, skateboards or bicycles, let alone mechanized toys! And scuba has the advantage that adults can actually share this activity with children, or teenagers, or young adults, and grandchildren
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