Artificial intelligence refers to computer systems that can perform tasks that usually require the intelligence of humans, including problem-solving, reasoning, and learning. As parents, AI may seem daunting. How do we teach our children about the responsible use of technology that we may not fully understand?
We need to let go of fear. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, researchers have identified potential benefits of the use of AI for children. These include advances in learning, creative expression, and improved communication. But the AAP also identified important risks involving misinformation, challenges related to privacy, and children perceiving AI as a friend or caregiver.1
The goal is not to keep children away from AI. The goal is to teach them how to think while using AI, as well as how to use AI appropriately. Here are six rules every family should consider establishing in their home.
1. Artificial Intelligence Can Help You Think. It Should Not Think for You
One of the most common places this situation shows up is with homework. Consider the following prompts: “Write my essay about the causes of World War II.” And “I don’t understand how people believed the views of Adolf Hitler. Can you explain this at a seventh-grade level?”
Both use AI, but they accomplish very different things. In the first example, AI replaces intellectual work. In the second, it supports learning. When children ask AI to quiz them on vocabulary terms, to explain difficult concepts, or to suggest topics for an essay about a book, those are uses that support learning.
Ask: Did AI help you learn this topic—or did it help you avoid learning it?
2. Confidence Is Not the Same as Accuracy
AI responses often come across as confident and accurate. However, AI can produce an impressive answer that is also completely wrong. This provides parents with an opportunity for an incredibly important learning opportunity: the use of critical thinking skills.
Try teaching children three words: Stop. Verify. Confirm. Stop means pausing before believing an answer that AI provides. Next, verify where the information came from. Do the research. Look for the original source. Finally, confirm important claims through reliable, independent sources.
For younger children, the message can simply be, “AI can make mistakes, just like people can.” Teenagers can go further. They need to ask: What’s the source? Is it reliable? Is this fact or opinion? Could the information be biased or outdated? Finding information is becoming remarkably easy. Determining whether that information deserves our trust and belief is a more important skill.
3. AI Is Not a Private Journal
A conversation with a chatbot can feel very personal and private. Your child may be sitting alone, typing into a personal device with no other human present. That doesn’t mean the information they type is treated as confidential. Children need to understand that information they enter into digital services may be stored or processed depending on the service and its settings. In addition, many AI companies use AI conversations for training and quality improvement purposes.
As a result, children need a straightforward rule: Don’t give artificial intelligence any information it doesn’t need. That includes passwords, home addresses, phone numbers, precise locations, school schedules, financial information, identifying numbers, private photographs, and sensitive personal information. The goal is to create children who make safer choices even when parents are not looking.
4. AI Can Seem Like a Friend Without Being One
This may be one of the most important distinctions families make with their children. Pew Research Center found that 16 percent of U.S. teenagers, ages 13 to 17, have used chatbots for casual conversation, while 12 percent have used them for advice or emotional support.2
Why do children turn to AI? Because AI answers immediately. It doesn’t interrupt. It doesn’t become impatient. It doesn’t judge. And AI can simulate empathy remarkably well. Yet simulated empathy does not replace genuine empathy, connection, or relationships with human beings. UNICEF has warned that children and young people may disclose urgent, personal, or even life-threatening situations to chatbots that were never designed to provide crisis support.3
It is important to teach children this distinction: AI can help you learn about emotions. It should never replace the humans who help you manage those difficult emotions. If a child is frightened, hopeless, depressed, in danger, or experiencing another serious problem, a trusted human needs to get involved as soon as possible.
5. Seeing Is No Longer Believing
Children are growing up in a world where photographs, voices, and videos can be artificially generated. We must remind children over and over again that they should never assume anything they see or read on the internet is true. Before sharing anyone else’s content, make sure your child asks: Is this real? Where did it come from? Before creating AI content involving someone else, ask: How would I feel if somebody made this about me? “Fake” does not mean harmless.
6. Make Communication Safer
Eventually, our children will encounter something online we wish they hadn’t. Our response afterward matters enormously. If every mistake is met with “What were you thinking?”, children may learn less about internet safety than we intended. Instead, they learn avoidance and secrecy. Consider establishing one rule before there’s a problem:
You will never be in trouble for coming to me because something online makes you uncomfortable or goes against our family values.
Consequences for intentionally breaking rules can still exist. Yet, seeking help should always remain safe. AI isn’t going away. It will likely become increasingly woven into education, work, medicine, entertainment, and relationships. Our job isn’t to raise children who fear artificial intelligence—or children who blindly trust it. It’s to raise children who can use a powerful tool without surrendering their judgment to it. The parenting question for this generation isn’t, “How do I keep my child away from AI?” It’s “How do I teach my child to use AI responsibly?”
