Your kid is talking to AI. Here is what to ask about it.
Chatbots are already part of homework and boredom. Five questions that open the conversation without an interrogation.
If your kid is older than ten, they have almost certainly typed something into a chatbot. For a math problem, for a story, or at midnight because it answers when nobody else does. That last one is the part worth knowing about.
It is normal, and it is new
Kids treat AI the way we treated search engines: as a thing that is simply there. What is new is the tone. A search engine gives you links. A chatbot gives you warmth, agreement and endless patience. For a lonely twelve-year-old, that is a powerful mix.
A chatbot never gets tired of your kid. That is its best feature and its biggest risk.
Five questions that open doors
None of these work as an interrogation. Try them in the car, where nobody has to make eye contact.
Ask out of curiosity, not suspicion
- What do you use it for most?
- Has it ever told you something that turned out to be wrong?
- Do you ever talk to it about stuff that’s bothering you?
- Would you tell it something you wouldn’t tell a friend?
- What should it never be used for, in your opinion?
Teach the one big rule
A chatbot sounds sure even when it is wrong. Kids who understand this are safer than kids with the strictest filter. Make a game of it: ask it something your kid knows a lot about, a favorite team, a book series, and find the mistake together. It usually takes less than five minutes.
Smartie’s tip
Try a chatbot together before you make rules about it. You will make better rules, and your kid will see that you know what you’re talking about.
Rules that hold up
Keep it short: no personal details, no photos of yourself or others, and anything that makes you feel strange gets shown to a parent. Then add the promise that makes the rule work: showing you never costs them the device.
AI that stays in your house.
Smartie, the KidsProxy assistant, runs locally on the KidsProxy Box. Questions your family asks stay in your home network.
Keep reading
- Privacy
What a filter can do, and what only a conversation can
A filter keeps the worst of the internet out. It can’t explain what your kid saw at a friend’s house.
- AI and kids
Homework with ChatGPT: where help ends and copying starts
A line you can draw together with your kid, and how to talk to the teacher about it.
- Screen time
The screen time fight isn’t about screen time
Most evening arguments start when a rule feels arbitrary. A simple voucher turns “five more minutes” into a deal your kid helped make.