My kids use AI as a tool, not a crutch. It's not going away, and I want them to know how to use it responsibly.

When my daughter was recently asked why she didn't just let ChatGPT create a logo for her business, her answer was everything I wanted to hear. She told the adult who asked, "Because if it does it for me, I won't know how to do it later when I'm a grown-up." This one sentence sums up how we're raising our kids to use AI — not as a crutch, but as a tool.

While I know plenty of other parents and adults don't think kids should have access to AI at all (and I agree that many of their reasons are valid), I also believe the technology isn't going anywhere. Like other technologies our kids are growing up with, I think AI should be part of their digital literacy.

My daughter sees AI as a tool, not a crutch

I have no doubt that both these conversations and AI itself will continue to evolve, just as I have no doubt that kids who learn how to engage appropriately with the technology will have a leg up on those who do not. For our family, AI is like a calculator or a search engine — a tool to assist learning, not replace it. The key is helping our kids learn how to use it to learn, and not how to let it completely do things for them.

Our 12-year-old daughter understands this concept well. She has used ChatGPT to teach her how to write code for a chatbot on her website, and to help her understand the design principles behind a logo. She doesn't look to AI to create these things for her; instead, she uses it as a resource to help her learn what to do.

She has enough knowledge about the technology now to understand that AI makes errors. She also understands that she wouldn't be able to spot those errors if she didn't know what to look for. That's one of the values we see in helping our kids understand AI's capabilities, as well as its limits.

If I don't teach my kids how to use AI, someone else will

Parenting in a digital world means recognizing that our kids will encounter powerful technologies, whether or not we prepare them. I feel as though, if we don't start conversations now, they'll learn from whoever or whatever they stumble across first. Not only might we miss our chance for those conversations, but they may not go the way I'd like.

So, we talk openly about AI's pros and cons, from its impact on independent thinking to the environmental costs of powering these tools. Some conversations are simple. Others are more complex. But I fully believe they're all necessary.

We model good use in our home and are often talk about how to use it

Because we talk about AI's environmental footprint, our family tries to use it with intention. That means skipping trends like "show what I look like as an action figure" or "write a pep talk like my drunk best friend." While those things are probably fun, we are trying to show that everything has some sort of cost, even if we don't see it in the moment.

Our family has also set up privacy and security controls that prevent platforms like ChatGPT from training with our data. We've talked with our kids about how anything you put online can easily surpass your control, even with the best security measures. We've also talked about what constitutes using it properly to help learn and work on assignments for school, what crosses that boundary into cheating, and how to fact-check what it tells you to avoid spreading misinformation.

It's an ongoing lesson on how to live in an increasingly online world, but I believe that their futures will be better for seeing what AI is capable of, while we are still trusted guides for their use of it. It's our hope that by giving our kids thoughtful guidance now, we're preparing them to be ethical, savvy tech users in a world that will only get more complex as they grow up.