Imagine the people designing Formula 1 cars saying, “These vehicles are becoming so powerful that we may need better safety measures before we keep accelerating.” That’s essentially the conversation happening in the AI world right now. Some of the people building it are starting to ask for the brakes.
Not everyone. Some tech leaders want AI to move faster.
But most of the debate is focused on slowing it all down with regulation, safety and understanding the impact for the future of society. It sounds like something for governments, researchers and Silicon Valley executives to worry about.
But as parents we should be paying attention too. Because while the world debates the future of AI, AI has already arrived in our children’s lives.
Obviously it is helping with homework -sometimes secretly, sometimes not. It is a therapist a friend, a speech writer, an image creator and often a cheat code.
And for some children, it’s becoming something even bigger: a tutor, a long-term creative partner, a sounding board and for some the belief that it is a real companion.
What are kids actually giving up?
The concern isn’t that AI is suddenly going to take over the world. The more immediate question is what happens when children increasingly outsource thinking to machines.
If AI writes the essay, creates the study notes and suggests the answers, what skills are children still practising? If a chatbot is always available, always patient and always ready to talk, what happens to the messy but important process of learning how to navigate real friendships? If AI can instantly create endless versions of the perfect body, perfect life or perfect face, how does that affect young people already trying to figure out who they are?
These aren’t science-fiction questions. They’re parenting questions.
For children, they’re especially important. This is the age when kids are developing critical thinking, building confidence, learning to solve problems and figuring out how they fit into the world.
Many of those skills develop through effort. Through getting things wrong. Through sitting with frustration. Through trying again.
AI removes effort beautifully. That’s what makes it so useful. It’s also why we need to think carefully about how children use it. The concern isn’t that AI will make children less intelligent. It’s that they may become less practised at doing some of the things intelligence requires.
Less practised at wrestling with difficult ideas. Less practised at tolerating uncertainty. Less practised at generating their own solutions before asking a machine for one.
We’ve been here before
Many of the experts calling for caution argue that the technology is advancing faster than society’s ability to understand its impact. Parents know exactly what that feels like.
We’ve been here before. Social media arrived before we understood its impact on self-esteem. Smartphones arrived before we understood their impact on sleep, attention and family life. Now AI is arriving before we fully understand how it might shape learning, relationships, creativity and identity.
That doesn’t mean parents should panic. It means parents should stay curious.
The digital citizenship skills that matter
The most important question isn’t whether AI is good or bad. It’s whether our children are learning to use it as a tool rather than becoming dependent on it.
Can they recognise when AI gets things wrong? Can they tell the difference between genuine expertise and machine-generated confidence? Can they use AI to support learning without letting it replace learning?
Those are the digital citizenship skills that matter.
The irony is that while some of the world’s leading AI experts are calling for a slowdown, parents may need to speed up one thing: the conversation.
Ask your child what they use AI for. Ask whether they trust it. Ask when it helps. Ask why it feels like a safe therapist and a new best friend. Ask when it gets things wrong. Ask whether they’ve ever used it to do something they should probably have done themselves.
Because the future of AI will be shaped in boardrooms, laboratories and government offices. But your child’s relationship with AI will be shaped around your kitchen table.
The question isn’t whether our children will grow up with AI. They will. The question is whether they’ll still know how to think, create, struggle and connect without it.
Conversation starters: How to bring this to your kitchen table
- If AI never judges you and is always patient, do you think that makes it a better listener than your actual friends, and what would you be giving up if you started going to it first?
- Have you ever told AI something you wouldn’t tell a real person? What does that tell you about what it’s actually replacing?
- What’s the funniest or weirdest thing you’ve gotten AI to do, and has it ever felt like more than just a joke, like it actually knows you a bit better than some of your friends?
- If a friend used AI to write you an apology instead of writing it themselves, would you be able to tell? Would it even count as a real apology?
- If AI wrote your essay, whose work is it really? Where do you think the line is between using a tool and letting it do the thinking for you?
- Has AI ever given you advice that turned out to be wrong or just bad – do you feel cheated when that happens?
Stay connected,
Sarah and Pam
