@Zef @rx7diver
I'm still trying to convince my 13 yo son to go. I show him videos of the interesting stuff I see and it's slowly peeking his interest. My 16 yo daughter is too busy being a teenage girl to be burdened with family time.
Gift them discover/intro scuba dives for a birthday or other such occasion...that will compel them a bit to use the gift. When they do it, go run some errands or grab a coffee/beer somewhere that is not the location of the intro dive so that they have the experience on their own and regal you with excitement and desire to do more when you pick them up afterwards.
One of the hardest lessons I learned as a parent is to look at the world through my child's eyes instead of through my own....
....years ago during a change of duty station move from one coast to the other, my kids were 8 and 10 at the time, we spent a week camping and hiking in Yellowstone National Park and another week doing the same in the Grand Tetons. For our first hike we chose a 6 mile loop out to a beaver pond. Due to lack of foot traffic on this trail, there was abundance of wildlife to see including a black that crossed our path about 2 miles into the hike.
I knew my kids could easily walk the 6 miles, as we did a lot of hiking while we lived in Washington State....and that there was my problem. I have vivid nightmarish recall of the meltdown my wife and I contended that lasted the final 3 miles of the hike.
Life's lesson on parenting that day was that Just because I knew my kids could hike 6 miles, and just because I wanted them to do it, did not mean they wanted to or thought it fun.
The remainder of the 2 weeks we did 1 to 2 mile excursions twice a day with lunch/ice cream or some other diversion in between...we saw a lot more of the park than we initially expected/planned and it was much more enjoyable for all of us, but especially our kids.
So try to see things through their lens as you present and guide their choices. While, to them, it's often not cool to be hangin' with dad, they often find it cool to show up at school on Monday mornings with stories of adventure to share with their friends.
And...
...If you have have never been there, take a family vacation to Yellowstone. Such an awesome place to visit!
-Z
