Stepping Back In with 3 Kids

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Every time my wife takes my daughter (almost 4) to an aquarium where they have a diver, she tells people that's her papa. My daughter loves water, and I'm hoping that she'll follow my fin kicks. My wife rolls her eyes with all the ocean/diving type books I buy to read to her, but there's an obvious agenda at play here :cool: . Being that we have one child, it isn't such a big deal for me to sneak away for a dive (and for my wife to go skiing, though next winter we will start taking my daughter to the slopes).

When it comes to vacations where there is diving, I get some days in, but it isn't the focus. The family is.

I'm hoping that with my non-profit/NGO my daughter will want to see my organizations are doing underwater with her own eyes.
 
I have two kids, who are now both qualified divers. Here is a summary of how we got here:

Back in 2000 (and pre kids) my wife and myself got qualified to dive. We then spent 4 years diving all over the place. Our first child (son)arrived in 2005 so that put an end to our diving adventures for a while, although we did manage a dive holiday to the Phillipines in 2006. Second child (daughter) was born in 2008. Luckily both kids took to the water really quickly and seemed to enjoy swimming, and also being underwater!

We had a landbased trip to Egypt in 2012, which gave both kids their first real snorkeling experience, my son enjoyed it straight away, while my daughter, who was only 5 at the time found it a bit overwhelming We did another land based Egypt trip a year or two after this, no diving but plenty of snorkeling.

When my son was 8 he did some basic diving in the pool.

2015 we booked another land based Egypt trip, but this time with a Junior Open Water Course for my son. I had managed to find a German run Egyptian dive school who offered the course for ten year olds. My son turned 10 on the day he started the course, and completed it about five days later. He had 1-2-1 instruction for the course, and from what I saw he got very good instruction. At this time my wife and myself restarted our diving, and managed to get some diving in while in Egypt.

My daughter turned 8 at the end of 2016 and got a Seal Team course as her birthday present.

2018 I found a dive shop in Egypt who would offered confined water sea diving for 8 year olds, with a max depth of 2m. So my daughter did a couple of ‘dives’ with them. Coraya Divers, near Marsa Alam for anyone interested. Since then I have met a few other diving families who’s kids have also started diving here. At the same dive center it was fairly simple to do unguided house reef diving for the rest of us, so we all managed to get diving in on this trip.

2019 my daughter completed her Junior Open Water with Coraya Divers, and my son did his Junior Advanced Open Water.

Both kids also completed Nitrox courses at some point over the years.

By chance I found a Red Sea liveaboard company (Deep Blue Cruises) that offers what they describe as kid safaris (for any age kids) and Family Safaris (for 12 years and older). They are a company aimed at the German market, but do cater for English speakers as well. So we had one of their trips booked for 2021, covid got in the way of this, so the booking got moved to 2022.

2022 our first liveaboard as a family. It is fair to say we all really enjoyed this, and looking back wish we had found this option sooner as it was an amazing experience.

2023 we have just completed a Red Sea Wrecks & Reef trip on a Deep Blue Cruises Family trip. Again a great experience and really improved the kids diving (my son is now 18 so maybe doesn’t count as a kid any more) On the trip my son completed his Deep Course and my daughter her Junior Advanced Open Water.

Next year we have another Red Sea Liveaboard planned, but this time on a normal adult boat, vising some of the more offshore areas.

Looking back it seemed a long journey getting the kids diving, but really once they turned 10 it started to open up options. I think if I had found the kids liveaboard option sooner we would have done one of these once my daughter was 10.
 
I took one of my tanks into the neighbors pool this weekend to check my regs and gear. The kids were interested, so I let them check out breathing underwater the first time. They really liked it and they are going to go to a sea camp with the lds.
 
This is sort of a dive log and sort of a request for your experiences diving with kids. Feel free to share your own stories or advice, I really dont mind going off topic...

Background:
My last dive was almost 9 years ago when my middle son turned 2yo. It was frustrating trying to dive with 2 kids and I just dropped this portion of my life after kathy got pregnant with my daughter. I was in st louis with no local diving, and I did mostly cave and great lakes wrecks. Diving those 'occasionally' is outside my risk tolerance.

After a Florida vacation and snorkeling from the beach, the kids are a little excited for scuba and snorkeling. We ordered some snorkeling fins for the kids and went to an outdoor pool with the gear yesterday. My daughter (7yo) is easily the most excited and she probably swam 12 laps in the 25m pool with me. The middle one did ok, but wasn't as proficient with the fins, plus he liked going down the slides and other fun parts if the pool. My oldest is very hard to motivate. He has some issues with ADHD, autism spectrum and anxiety. We worked it out and I have him notice that this would happen, which gave him a chance to mentally prepare to go to the pool. Leaving the house can sometimes be a challenge with him.

So I'm trying to get them proficient in the water and excited enough to co-exist with us so we can go on a dive vacation. The hardest part will be my oldest (13yo).

He did pretty well at the pool and swam 3 or 4 laps with his fins and snorkel. They also do swim classes every week.
I remember you on SB, really that was 9 years ago?!?!
 
@b1gcountry I'm 38 and I have 4 kids (I started really young!). I was personally cert in 2017. My wife was cert in 2018 or 2019. I started the kids with a try it scuba. They loved it. I took them in pools with my gear and they took right to it. I started with one on one and gradually we started diving all together (ages at that time were 11, 14, 16, 22). I signed them all up to get certified together in 2020. We dove Dutch Springs as a family as much as we could the last year it was open. Life was awesome, probably the best summer I've ever had. Camping and diving with my family, it was epic!!

Fast forward to today and I am the only one that still dives. I get out on a charter ~ once a month and dive weekly in a local quarry. Turns out my kids want to experience new things, not really stick with the same thing over and over. They're just not "divers" and that's ok, I've accepted it. I don't force it.

I guess my only advice that I have based on experience would be push for it, but don't let it become the thing that drives a wedge between you and them if it's something they lose interest in.

Today I enjoy each one of my kids through whatever they enjoy. We still experience new things together, it's just not diving and that's ok. As a family we all enjoy camping. This weekend we're all together 4 days and the time together is what counts.

They're only little once. Enjoy them in whatever they want to do because you'll never get that time back. I dive now, but I'll dive more when they're gone, and I know there will come a day when I'm underwater diving WISHING I could go back to when they were little again. I try to think about that now and cherish every moment. Time moves too fast.

Good luck!!
 
I remember you on SB, really that was 9 years ago?!?!
Indeed... time flies with kids.
My hair is starting to grey and I'm also starting to need reading glasses.
Dang those kids!
 

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