A parent’s guide to Gen AI: 11 ways to help your offspring stay safe and learn stuff

7–11 minutes

In this, the first Sensible Woman post of 2026, I take my experience as the mother of a gamer to bring you a parent’s guide to AI.

I should have known what was coming when three-year-old Jack played his first game on a computer and his face lit up with joy.

Indeed, dear reader, my name is Renee and I am the mother of a gamer.

As I type this, Jack, aged 23 and sitting across the landing in his man cave with the door closed, is playing something called The Long Dark. (An Internet search tells me this is a survival video game in which a crash-landed pilot must survive in the wilderness after a geomagnetic storm.)

His gaming did not always happen in a cave! When he was small, and a tween, and then an early teen, he would have been gaming on a computer in the communal living area. Or he might have been on his Xbox on the couch in the lounge. He only got to have a computer in his room in later teen years.

All of that was a conscious choice. If his gaming was public, it would be within the bounds of sanity and good sense (more or less).

I also took an active interest. I spent hours looking over his shoulder as he hacked his way through Minecraft or killed “people” in a succession of shooter games.

Most of all, I knew that trying to stop him gaming was like trying to tell the tide not to come in. So I found ways to work with that, rather than trying to ban it completely.

Parenting in the age of generative AI

That “parent of a gamer” experience has relevance to the 2020s. Gen AI is on our children’s devices (or on those of their friends) and they are using it whether we like it or not. So the smart thing to do is to swim with the current: get in the water with our kids and learn together.

Eleven ways to help your offspring stay safe and learn stuff

Using my experience as a gamer’s mom, and a bunch of research, here’s my guide to Generative AI for worried parents and caregivers. I cover:

1. Leading by example

2. Investing time

3. Starting early

4. Explaining the territory

5. Verifying facts

6. Using AI as a tutor

7. Who to ask for emotional support (not the AI!)

8. Prioritising privacy

9. Encouraging agency

10. Fostering transparency

11. Watching for dependency

1. You can’t talk to your children about AI if you aren’t using it yourself

The first step is to put aside any preconceptions you have. I might have been a parent who limited screen time and resisted phones and only caved on the Xbox when my brother-in-law upgraded his and donated his older one to Jack. But I also know that gaming and his online community are what got Jack through his final year of high school in the midst of a pandemic. These things are both bad and good. Just get in there and use the hell out of AI. (I’ve written a host of posts that will help, and run a learning circle. A full list of resources is at the bottom of this post.)

2. Once you know something about the field, you’re going to have to devote time to this

There’s no magic bullet here. Put down your own phone and find your child. Sit next to them, ask questions. Put in the hours it takes to see what they are doing and how they are doing it. I can tell you now that my own mind-numbing hours of looking at Minecraft bases were completely worth it. There are bonds between my son and I that are there simply because I showed an interest.

3. Don’t wait for the teen years

Experts suggest broaching the subject when children are in primary school. If you wait, they’re likely to encounter it through friends or social media first. Start now – which also applies if you have teenagers.

Hot tip: Ditch the interrogations (“Who are you talking to?”). Rather say: “How does that work?” or “Show me the coolest thing you’ve done with it”. Or suggest a silly question. Keep it light!

4. Understand what AI is, and tell your kid

Children, especially younger ones, may believe AI is “smart” or has feelings. It is crucial to explain that AI does not think; it predicts. Explain that AI is like a sophisticated autocomplete that has read the entire internet. It matches patterns. If a child types “nobody understands me,” the AI responds with comfort not because it cares, but because it has seen that pattern in its data. And, for the love of all that is holy, don’t give the AI a name or use he/she pronouns. Gen AI is an “it”!

Hot tip: Play Quick, Draw!, where a neural network guesses a user’s drawing – an instant demo of what Gen AI is actually doing.

5. Fact-checking

Many people are using AI to help their children with homework (a good third of adults in a big training cohort confessed that this was, in fact, their main use of AI). Your child or teen needs to know that Gen AI is prone to “hallucinations” – it confidently states facts that are completely made up. So show your child that if an AI states a fact (“The French Revolution started in 1789”), they must check it against independent sources (like a textbook, a news site, Wikipedia or a teacher) before accepting it as true.

Hot tip: Turn this into a game where you ask the AI about a topic your child knows well (like a favourite video game or hobby) and challenge them to find the mistakes in the AI’s answer.

6. Turn AI into a tutor

Many AI tools now have specific “Learning” or “Study” modes that use Socratic questioning. This means the AI asks the student questions to guide them toward the answer rather than just doing the homework for them. Below, the “Study and Learn” mode, available in the free version of ChatGPT (hit the Plus sign, and then More).

Hot tip: If your child uses AI to understand a concept, ask them to explain it back to you without looking at the screen. If they can’t explain it in their own words, they haven’t learned it.

7. Emotional support

Microsoft studied 37 million Copilot conversations between January and September 2025. On mobile devices, health is the dominant topic, across every hour and every month observed – with users seeking information and advice. In those conversations, it’s likely that emotional guidance and support came up a lot. Your child or teenager is not immune, and is very likely to be having those sorts of conversations with AI, which is a tool specifically designed to validate feelings without offering challenge or perspective. I don’t have to say how dangerous that is, do I?

Hot tip: Establish a rule that for emotional distress, relationship drama, or difficult decisions, they must consult a human (parent, friend, counsellor, teacher) first.

8. Keep what’s yours, yours

Sit down together and configure privacy settings, or talk about turning on parental controls. Ensure your child or teen knows how to use “block” and “report” buttons and understand that a profile picture does not prove someone’s identity.

READ: Parental Controls on ChatGPT – FAQ | OpenAI Help Center

ChatGPT’s Privacy Trap: Default Settings You Can’t Ignore

9. Agency is important

Instead of just teaching them to use AI, teach them to control it. Teach them that changing a prompt changes the result. Show them how to be specific and intentional (“Explain climate change from an activist’s perspective vs oil industry perspective”) to reveal bias and show that they are directing the technology.

10. Secrecy breeds risk

Make AI use collaborative rather than hidden. If your child uses ChatGPT for homework, the rule should be that they show you the conversation history. This isn’t about spying; it’s about collaboration and ensuring the tool is being used to brainstorm or outline, not to write the essay for them.

Hot tip: Don’t just impose rules; write them together. Ask your child what they think safe use looks like. They are more likely to follow guidelines they helped create.

11. Watch for the dependency

Be aware of the signs that a child is becoming too attached to their AI companion (or in fact to any of the many digital platforms they may be using, including games). Look for withdrawal from real-world friends, sudden secrecy with devices, or talking about the AI as if it has genuine feelings or is a “best friend”. Also, prioritise time spent outside with real people. If an AI interaction becomes the default for boredom or loneliness, it is time to intervene and reconnect.

Final word

Think of teaching your child to use AI like teaching them to swim. You wouldn’t just ban them from the water because it’s dangerous, nor would you throw them in the deep end alone. You teach them how to tread water, how to spot currents, and you stay in the pool with them until they are strong enough to swim safely on their own.

Main picture: Chen Li, Unsplash