Tom Peyton

Keeping families and kids safe should always be the #1 priority for traveling families!

For most of my 30-year career, I had been frustrated over having to plead my case to the resort owners for better safety provisions for diving with kids. Kids’ diving safety should be common sense, but it was not. Much has changed, and many dive operators and resorts have upgraded their safety standards. I want families to understand how to choose the right resort. How to keep their families safe when booking dive trips. What is important to consider when parents want to go diving with their kids or take their kids on a dive vacation is asking the right questions. Why choose Kids Sea Camp?

I’m talking to the average family out there that goes on adventure vacations and wants to make scuba diving a part of their lifestyle with their kids or grandkids. Many recreational divers have skipped a few years of diving. They should absolutely take a refresher or complete the e-learning for the PADI Scuba Tune-up course. If you do not know the new signals or skills, and you are going to be diving with newly certified kids or grandkids, make sure you get up to date on your training beforehand. Many adult divers feel comfortable being responsible for themselves but not for another adult, especially a child. Thinking about taking a child diver underwater with no verbal communication is very intimidating to many parents or grandparents. So let’s get you ready to feel confident and have some fun with your kids, creating memories that last a lifetime.

Always have a PADI Pro in the water

At Kids Sea Camp and with Family Divers, we always have a PADI Pro in the water when teaching and training with kids. Kids’ diving safety is our primary focus. Kids are not allowed to dive with other kids, and parents are reassured by a PADI pro in the water during our Kids Sea Camp event and scheduled family dives. When families contact us to book a family dive vacation and want to get their kids or other family members certified to dive, we arrange the course, e-learning links, rental gear, and rental dive gear for students who register with Kids Sea Camp. We consider the destination, the conditions, and the student’s experience level, and we do our best to match the dive operator to their needs.

We choose kid-friendly resorts and dive operators because we know the dive staff have experience diving and teaching kids. The dive operators we choose have smaller dive gear and tanks for kids. There are many good diver resorts around the world now that I consider family-friendly, and asking the right questions is the most important thing a parent can do when researching on their own.

There should be reasonable rates for the dive instructor who is teaching your course at a vacation resort to continue to dive with the kids for the rest of their stay on the additional dives purchased after certification. Look for another operator if they do not offer a private guide.

Many dive resorts are making improvements. They understand that by creating diverse safety standards and applying common-sense principles, they have repeat clients. These clients will grow to trust them and remain loyal. They see that contributing to growing our dive industry by making better choices for families is the wise decision for the future.

Over 8,100 new kids’ certifications

Our family company specializes in kids’ diving safety, with over 8,100 youth certs and no accidents, and I have a growing, successful business that prioritizes safety. With a 75% repeat client base and 3 generations of travelers on any given trip. Kids Sea Camp caters to more grandparents sharing amazing adventures with their grandkids because I make it safe, easy, and fun for all family members to enjoy the ocean together. Diving creates memories to last a lifetime.

Think of this average scenario, NOT at Kids Sea Camp, but with any dive operations around the globe, you may choose:  You’re a certified parent. You are on a family vacation and have signed your spouse and two children up for an open-water diver course. One instructor will teach all three of your loved ones to dive over the 3 days of your family vacation. Then, at the end of those 3 days, after 5 confined pool dives and 4 open water dives, they are certified. An open-water-certified parent is now on their own, responsible for themselves and their family in the water.

How not to teach kids scuba diving

The dive shop instructor has completed his job and moved on to another class. Dad and his family are loaded onto a boat with his wife and your 2 kids. They have had no open-water dive experience outside of the class they just completed. Your spouse is nervous about the kids. You’re going to be put on a boat with a bunch of other divers and an instructor who is in charge of everyone and will mainly point out stuff. You will need to find your own way back to the boat and manage your family’s depth and time, as well as any issues that come up. That is the norm. This is not, in my opinion, acceptable, and it is not what I suggest or provide for my clients; it’s not how I teach and work with kids.

Kids Sea Camp has no dive accidents. We have made changes to the operators we work with or have approved as family-friendly worldwide. The resort you choose to dive with, when teaching your children and family how to dive, needs to meet the highest standards available. When someone is purchasing a week’s stay with you, meals with you, diving with you, and a certification course. It should be good standard practice that the family, the child, should have their instructor with them, accompanying them on all dives, and the remainder of the dives they have booked on their vacation after getting certified.

My analogy for you is this: your child goes to driving school and completes the course on those two Saturdays. Would you be willing to hand them the keys to your car and let them go drive on I-95? It’s the same. Kids’ diving safety is training a new driver.

Kids-Friendly Dive Staff

So, with Family Dive Adventures and Kids Sea Camp, whenever we book a certification course, it is expected and mandatory for our dive pro to accompany them for the remainder of the dive days.

This is not only common sense but also common practice. Those new divers have no boat experience. They have had no experience of diving on their own. There is so much to remember for them, and they need those few days to get it. You need experience practicing. They need to remember safety stops. What to do in case of an emergency, and navigation. Oversight is a key practice that they just learned safely, so they can become more confident and better divers.

I do understand how expensive it is to assign a dive staff member. But when kids are involved, you should demand an additional dive pro in the water with them or any new divers. The best family-friendly operators have made changes to accommodate this. Meet our family-friendly KSC dive staff.

Choosing your dive resort

A dive resort you choose for your family dive vacation should offer special-needs guide pricing. If you want to add a dive pro for added safety, because kids are personal, not business. Most family-run dive operator managers and owners make sure their own kids have a private dive instructor. Kids Sea Camp treats every child like one of our own!

I thank all the great family-friendly operators I work with around the world who get this! In the Caribbean, we work with Buddy Dive Bonaire, Clearly Cayman Dive Resorts, Divetec, Blackbird Caye Resort, and Anse Chastanet, St. Lucia. In the Indo-Pacific we love, Sea Explorers Philippines, Lembeh, Manado, Bangka, with Murex divers in Indonesia. The Arenui is a wonderful liveaboard making a difference every day. The change will come if you demand it.       

By Margo Peyton, PADI MSDT Instructor