Getting your kids certified safely

Lots of friends have asked me about getting their kids certified to dive, significantly as their kids grow older and as they hear about our dive trips and adventures. We are huge proponents! Ben and I consistently wax long on our friends Margo Peyton and Tom Peyton at Kids Sea Camp. They do a fantastic job with family dive trips and getting kids to become certified scuba divers. Inevitably, people ask me about taking a course at a local dive shop and the family going on a trip somewhere.

While some do that, it’s not the path we took, and in retrospect, I am so glad we did not. Really and truly, Margo and Kids Sea Camp is unparalleled in the business of not only certifying young divers but also focusing on having them SAFELY shepherded, guided, and mentored as they move up the learning curve and become experienced divers. Just getting certified doesn’t make your kid a good and safe diver. Ben and I laugh when people call scuba diving a sport, BUT it does take more than a certification class to develop the skills needed to be a good diver. Yes! (See for yourself)

There are good divers and bad divers! My mom-friends and I always talk about the developing frontal lobe and kids learning to make sound judgments – think of that underwater! I have to say 10 dive trips with Kids Sea Camp later, Hannah and Caleb are great divers, and I’m thrilled that, even so, Margo has kids covered with extra dive masters on their boats. They love diving as much as we, and it’s been great for us as a family and for them as young people.

So, for my friends who are considering having their kids certified, I’m sharing a long and detailed note from Margo that describes all she does behind the scenes to make it SAFE for kids to dive on her trips and her vision to help develop the next generation of divers and supporters of our oceans. P.S. If you wonder how soon you can go, we took Caleb at 6. He learned to snorkel while Hannah, at 9, put on a tiny tank and BC and played “telephone” in the pool (teaching her not to panic when the regulator pops out of her mouth underwater).

By the way, we are still dreaming and talking about the manta rays and hammerheads from New Year’s and have whale sharks and pygmy seahorses on tap for Thanksgiving!

Jennifer McClure, KSC mom, 2019