Raising Children in the Age of AI

What Should (and Shouldn't) Change at Home

When parents ask me about AI in education, the most common question is, “Should I be worried?” Closely followed by, “How can I help my child without becoming a tech expert or necessarily understanding what is happening with AI?”

Those are the right questions. Because what’s happening right now in classrooms across the world—AI co-writing essays, adaptive apps giving real-time feedback, students using chatbots to explain math concepts—isn’t just a school reality. It’s a parenting and societal moment too. One that invites us to rethink not just screen time or homework rules, but how we raise children in a world where intelligence, creativity, and learning are being reshaped and redefined.

We don’t need to panic, and we don’t need to plug our kids into more tech either. What we do need is clarity. About what’s changing, what still matters, and how we can build strong habits at home that align with the values we want to see in school.

Too often in education, meaningful reflection on what should evolve—and what should be preserved—has been rushed or superficial. We’ve failed to fully examine the ripple effects: how a new tool or policy might cause collateral damage elsewhere in the system, or how integrating something new might unintentionally weaken something essential. In a world shaped by rapid digital acceleration, this kind of depth can’t be optional anymore.

And this reflection isn’t just the work of systems—it’s something parents need to engage in too, as we navigate what to hold on to, what to adapt, and how to guide our children through the complexity of growing up in the age of AI.

What Actually Supports Learning—and What Still Matters Most

Amid the excitement—and anxiety—about AI, GenAI, and even AGI, the focus often shifts to what’s new: faster tools, smarter platforms, and bold claims about “revolutionizing” education. But that lens can be misleading. The real work isn’t about replacing what we have with something shinier.

It’s about understanding how AI/GenAI/AGI and the tools will impact learning and development—what it amplifies, what it disrupts, and what it demands we protect. Some things must evolve. Others must be preserved. And the key is knowing which is which.

Here are three examples that reflect this balance:

📌 Handwriting Still Builds the Brain
AI-assisted writing tools are becoming part of the high school and university workflow. But before that, students need the cognitive architecture that develops through forming letters by hand. A study in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience shows that handwriting activates reading- and memory-related areas of the brain in ways typing and tracing don’t. So while AI may enhance revision or idea generation in later years, early literacy still depends on analog foundations we cannot afford to discard.

📌 Conversations Build More Than Vocabulary
Voice-based AI tools are emerging in early literacy, but nothing replaces authentic back-and-forth human dialogue. Research shows that conversational turn-taking in early childhood is one of the strongest predictors of vocabulary, comprehension, and self-regulation. Whether it’s storytelling over lunch or a bedtime book discussion, these moments lay the groundwork for the very skills AI may one day support—empathy, reflection, nuance—but ones we believe are best nurtured through human presence, voice, and connection.

📌 Math Understanding Needs Talk and Touch
AI tools like MathGPT or Wolfram Alpha can walk students through problem sets and explain reasoning—but deep number sense starts much earlier. Jo Boaler’s work at Stanford emphasizes the role of movement, manipulatives, and verbalized reasoning in early math development. Parents explaining a tip at a restaurant or measuring ingredients for a recipe are building mathematical confidence—without a screen in sight. And later, students can learn to engage AI as a partner for inquiry, not just a calculator.

These aren’t just add-ons or alternatives. They’re a reminder that AI integration must start with the learner—not the tech. What matters is how tools interact with development, context, and purpose, but also understand that AI is a General Purpose Technology that will be embedded into everything. That’s the conversation we need to be having, and that’s where parents play a central role.

It is through these everyday human moments that we transmit values, explore beliefs, and help children develop their own paradigms. I, for one, don’t want to abdicate that responsibility—to a screen, a shortcut, or an algorithm.

Co-Intelligence at Home: What AI Can Teach Us About Parenting

In The Disengaged Teen, Rebecca Winthrop and Jenny Anderson outline what many parents already feel: students(teenagers) are increasingly present, but checked out. Boredom, anxiety, and a sense of irrelevance pervade the school experience—and often show up at home too.

This is where AI can serve as a mirror, not a menace. The arrival of powerful learning tools forces us to confront something deeper: how do we teach our children to take ownership of their learning, not outsource it?

At home, this means:

• Asking reflective questions, not just checking homework.
  Instead of “Did you finish your essay?” try: “What was hard to write, and how did you work through it?” Or: “How did you use the AI tool, and what did you change after?” This cultivates metacognition—a key skill for long-term success.

• Valuing process over perfection.
  Let them show you multiple drafts. Ask them to narrate their thinking. This reframes AI from being a shortcut to being a partner in learning, what I call a co-intelligence (Jarvis in Ironman movies)

• Modeling vulnerability and curiosity.
  Let your child see you using AI for everyday tasks—meal planning, summarizing articles, brainstorming travel ideas—and talk about when it helps and when it doesn’t making sure you demonstrate using it with intention and responsibility.

Parenting in the age of co-intelligence isn’t about becoming more technical—it’s about becoming more transparent, more intentional, and more conversational.

Not Everything Needs AI—But Everything Needs Intention

As jurisdictions globally struggle with what a Digital/AI continuum look like for children from early childhood to higher learning, one key insights that is valid and should be foundational, is that digital integration doesn’t require a device in every hand at every moment. It requires clarity about when digital tools make learning deeper, amplifies the learning, and when human-led, tactile, or relational strategies are better.

This applies at home too.

• You don’t need to fear AI, but you should frame it.
  Children should understand when they are using AI, how it’s helping, and how to think critically about its output whether that be for school work or with social media.

• Analog skills are foundational, not outdated.
  Reading physical books, building things by hand, and face-to-face dialogue remain essential—especially for building focus and empathy. The amount of time people can focus today has been dwindling rapidly. We need to develop that muscle and continue to train it, otherwise we and our children are bound to 30 second cycles, all surface and no depth.

• Tech use should serve relationships, not replace them.
  One question to ask often: Is this tool helping conversation, helping me develop relationships, helping me connect in an authentic way or cutting them off?

This kind of intentionality—what we keep, what we add, and how we blend—is far more important than chasing the next platform or gadget.

Not a Loss of Innocence, but an Act of Preparation

Dr. Julie Garlen, professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education - University of Toronto, recently challenged the widely accepted notion of childhood as a space of pure innocence. In a compelling CBC interview, she argued that shielding children from difficulty—whether emotional, social, or intellectual—often does more harm than good. When we idealize childhood as blissfully untouched by the world’s complexity, we ignore the lived experiences of many young people and deprive them of the language, tools, and relationships they need to process and make sense of it all. From disappointment and grief to racism and inequality, children are already encountering the harder edges of reality. Avoiding these conversations doesn’t protect them—it isolates them and I wonder how much they are truly struggling with on their own.

That’s why parenting in the age of AI cannot be centered on avoidance or expecting schools to do it all. As AI becomes a constant presence in our homes, schools, and social lives, our children need us to guide—not shield—them, be active and engaged working with their school and teachers. Digital fluency, like emotional resilience, begins with trust and intentional conversation. It’s not about giving children every answer; it’s about walking beside them as they ask more and better questions. These conversations need to start far earlier than most people assume. AI literacy doesn’t begin with a screen—it begins with moments of honest reflection, value-shaping dialogue, and the kind of trust that helps a child know they can come to you when the algorithm gets it wrong, when something doesn’t feel right, or when they’re unsure who to believe. That’s not a loss of innocence. That’s an act of preparation.

And at the heart of that preparation is resilience. Angela Duckworth, author of Grit, defines it as the combination of passion and perseverance for long-term goals. But resilience is also built in the small, everyday moments when children learn to face uncertainty, sit with discomfort, and try again. The more we help children talk about what’s hard—whether it’s the emotional complexity of AI in their lives or the moral dilemmas of growing up online—the stronger their inner scaffolding becomes. Resilience doesn’t mean bracing children against the world; it means equipping them to walk through it with clarity, courage, and connection. And that begins, always, at home.

True resilience isn’t built in avoidance—it’s shaped through purpose, reflection, and the steady presence of people who believe in the long road and doing hard things.

The Parenting Question That Matters Now

The most important shift parents can make today isn’t to download more learning apps, or subscribe to new software or limit screen time with stricter rules (though limits still matter and are incredibly important). It’s to ask one powerful question:

What habits, values, beliefs, and ways of thinking do I want my child to carry into a world where AI is everywhere?

And then build home routines that reflect those values. That could mean:

• Creating time for curiosity—watching a documentary, playing “What if?” games, or exploring a question together.

• Practicing discernment—comparing AI answers to books or lived experience.

• Encouraging agency—letting them set goals, reflect on progress, and talk through challenges.

• Encouraging creativity and producing content- not absorb content constantly from others, which is often times what’s happening with social media etc., but actively producing for themselves and what they are interested in.

No tool will replace a parent’s ability to shape mindset and motivation. If AI is changing how children learn, then parents remain the most critical influence on why they learn—and how they show up in that learning.

Final Thought

This isn’t easy. But it is possible.

As AI becomes embedded in everything from how students write essays to how they prepare for careers, we don’t need to become AI experts. We need to become stronger allies to our children—curious, reflective, and intentional. Let’s not abdicate our collective responsibilities, but step-up and help them navigate this new world.

That’s the parenting pivot that matters most now.