How to Prepare Your Child for Generative AI: 5 Ways to Empower Their Development (Rather Than Undermine It)
By Dr. Victoria Ranade, PhD, MBA, ABPP
Clinical Child Psychologist
I'm fascinated by generative AI. As a clinical psychologist with specialized training in child and teen psychology, I've also been extremely concerned about its impact on development. What does this new technology mean for kids? Should it be avoided like social media? Or would keeping your child from it actually hold them back? What are parents to do?
We don't yet fully know all of the implications. But what we're seeing so far is that AI can tutor, write essays, create shopping lists, and even be used to style your child's wardrobe! Thus the question is no longer whether your child will encounter AI; rather, the question is whether they'll know what to do with it when they encounter it, and if they know how to use it with discernment, integrity, and in a manner that strengthens their learning rather than detracts from it.
What follows are five recommendations based on my expertise as a clinical child psychologist and on recent conversations I hosted on innercallingto better understand AI from a more grounded, evidence-based perspective, including with experts across psychology, university leadership, ethics, technology, and the literary arts including with Dr. Emily Bender, author of The AI Con; Dr. Carl Lejuez, Provost of Stony Brook University;Dr. Colleen Bryne, ethicist; Dr. Julie Carpenter, a cultural commentator and expert on technology's role in modern life, andMark Matousek, an award winning author.
1. Protect their voice.
As a child psychologist, one of my greatest roles is to help each child find their own unique voice in the world. It's an innermost voice of wisdom that is deeper than all other voices of the world, one of their own personal authenticity and truth.
It is extremely important that your child learn how to find and develop this voice, because it serves as a guide and north star throughout their lives. If a child relies on AI to generate content, they risk weakening or worse, never finding this innermost voice. This voice is found through discovery and use, through writing essays, through struggling with an idea and finding your own way to say it, through getting it wrong and trying again, through time spent in deep internal self-reflection. If generative AI replaces that process, that is one of the most concerning aspects of this technology for youth.
The good news is that AI can also be used to challenge a child's thinking, to help them further advance their own perspective and voice. For example, you can modify settings within generative AI chatbots so that it pushes back, asks questions, and provides critiques. That's a fundamentally different use than having it generate answers for your child.
Children must be taught this difference. In order to teach it, you yourself must become comfortable with the technology, so I recommend you spend time using it yourself to better understand it as a technology. "Calculate X" in the context of math homework, with AI providing the immediate solution, is different than calculating the problem yourself first and then using AI to double-check. Writing an essay and then using AI to proofread is different than AI generating the essay.
I like to think of AI as a Chinese abacus. When we were kids, my stepsister Shana learned how to use the Chinese abacus to compute math problems. By training in the use of the abacus, she actually gained more mental adeptness in math. The abacus isn't a calculator that replaces computation. Instead, it is a tool that teaches you how to think of math conceptually, in tens. This is how we should be thinking of AI – not as a calculator that replaces thought, but as something that can powerfully advance thought and push you to greater creative and computational heights within yourself. In my opinion, it is this very skill we must help children learn when it comes to AI.
2. Get in the sandbox together.
I recommend you create a family account, which you use to create fun family projects you work on together with AI. Use it to explore the technology together, and to monitor your child's safe use of AI. Have a discussion as a family about prompting. Create and be curious together.
What I've found is that the more you use this technology, the more you understand its limitations. It's like playing in a sandbox, as it isn't infinite. There are boundaries. Spend time in the sandbox to understand the shape of those boundaries, what this technology can and can't do. That understanding is what makes you a better, more discerning user. In the process, you can have discussions with your child and help them become a more discerning user too.
3. Protect your child's confidence.
Children are in the process of developing their self-esteem. For such a powerful technology to exist that they can simply turn to for answers can create a dependency and undermine their confidence in themselves to arrive at those answers on their own.
For example, a child who uses AI to generate essays may eventually lose confidence in their ability to write without it, particularly when using it at such a formative age. Over time, they may lose or never fully develop the skill of writing itself to their potential. One could argue the skill of writing no longer matters if generative AI can now do it immediately. But I'd push back as the cognitive abilities that essay writing represents are still needed, including focus, effortful control, organizing thoughts, and communication. These are human capacities that matter far beyond any single assignment. Moreover, there is a great power in words and in understanding how to utilize human language to its fullest capacity to express oneself, to lead, to inspire. Importantly, writing also shapes thinking and thinking in turn, shapes how we experience the world.
We need to help children understand the natural intelligence that is already within them, to help them find, develop, and trust it.
4. Let your child play with it.
I believe it is extremely important to help your child spend time with this technology (safely, with monitoring). When I was a kid, I spent much of my free time coding websites and taking apart computers, fiddling with hundreds of PC settings just to see what would happen. That led to an intuitive understanding of computers and programming and analytical thinking that I still use to this day as a psychologist and businesswoman. I didn't learn by studying computers from books; I learned by pushing them to their limits through firsthand experience.
I recommend you help your child develop that same kind of relationship with AI, one that is not of passive consumption, but active exploration. Let them prompt and re-prompt and see how the output changes. Let them catch it making mistakes. Let them discover for themselves that it's impressive and limited, helpful and unreliable – all at the same time. Understanding creates judgment and discernment, which is what they will need with this technology.
5. Honor what is human.
Take your child to places where you learn about human evolution or ancient cultures, where you can help connect them more deeply to the story of humans on this planet. I recently visited Florence and stood in front of the statue of David. It was in that moment I felt in awe of human genius, and what lies deep within each of us.
Find ways to highlight the natural humanness of the world around them. When mistakes happen, teach them that they occurred because it is human to have them and an opportunity to grow. Examine arts and crafts made by humans and study the care and craft behind them.
There is something deeply beautiful about being human and the imperfections we have. When your child struggles, resist the urge to always smooth it over. The struggle is where the growth is. Help your children hold onto this understanding, even as the world slowly pushes it away.
