What Parents Need To Know About Growing Up With AI Part 1
By Susan Saxtorph
1. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming part of children's everyday lives remarkably quickly. From your perspective, how might growing up alongside AI shape the way children learn, think, communicate, and understand the world?
AI is fundamentally changing the conditions children grow up under. Previous generations learned to search for answers slowly through books and trial and error. Children today can often get an answer instantly, and that can be a strength: curiosity can be followed in real time. But it also changes the learning process itself. Patience, persistence, and the ability to sit with uncertainty until you find an answer yourself are skills that develop through the process of searching, and AI can shorten that process considerably. I see it as a shift from knowing something to knowing how to ask the right question, which creates new demands on what adults need to teach children: to think for themselves before turning to AI and to evaluate the answers they receive critically.
AI can also change the way children communicate. Children accustomed to AI's endless patience and availability may find it harder to navigate the natural challenges of human relationships, including waiting, disagreement, and misunderstanding. Those experiences are uncomfortable, but they are an important part of social development.
2. When we talk about AI and child development, what do you think parents and educators should be paying the most attention to right now?
In my view, the most important question is whether AI is supporting a child's own thinking or replacing it. Is the child using AI to explore ideas and get help moving forward, or has it become a shortcut that delivers the finished result without requiring much thought? That distinction determines whether AI becomes a tool for development or an obstacle to it.
Adults should also pay close attention to the emotional dimension. Children, particularly younger ones, can struggle to distinguish simulated empathy from a genuine relationship. They may also develop attachments to chatbots and AI companions before they are cognitively mature enough to understand what they are actually interacting with. Parents and educators need to talk openly with children about what AI is and what it is not.
3. Are there particular stages of childhood when children may be more sensitive to the influence of AI? Should our approach to AI change as a child grows?
Yes, and the differences are significant, but the type of AI matters just as much. A math tutoring tool and an anthropomorphic AI companion designed to feel like a friend carry very different risks, even for children of the same age.
For children from birth to age four, my professional judgment is that AI has very little to offer. Attachment theory is well established. Responsive human interaction—eye contact, tone of voice, and being emotionally mirrored by a caregiver—is central to brain development, language acquisition, and secure attachment during this period. There isn’t yet direct research on AI use in this age group. However, given how important embodied human presence is, I’d argue that AI should not be part of a young child's daily life.
From around age five through middle childhood, children are learning what is real and what is make-believe. Research has shown that younger children are more likely than older children to personify AI and attribute feelings, intentions, and even friendship to it. This is also a period when problem-solving and persistence are developing rapidly. Overreliance on quick answers can undermine those skills.
By adolescence, children are generally more capable of critical and analytical thinking about AI, but emotional dependency can become a greater concern. Research suggests that some teenagers are choosing AI companions for serious conversations at a stage when identity and social-emotional development still depend heavily on real relationships.
My approach changes with age accordingly: human interaction at the center and minimal direct AI use for the youngest; AI as a supervised tool, alongside conversations about what it is and what it isn’t, for school-aged children; and guided independence for teenagers, with an emphasis on critical evaluation and emotional awareness rather than restriction alone.
A useful rule of thumb for parents: the more human-like and emotionally available an AI tool is designed to be, the older a child should be before using it independently, and the more carefully its use should be supervised.
4. AI can provide children with instant answers, explanations and personalized learning. What opportunities do you see for AI to support children's curiosity, education, and development?
Used well, AI genuinely has something valuable to offer. One of the clearest opportunities is personalization. AI can adapt explanations to a child's level in a way that is difficult to replicate individually in a classroom of 25 students. A child who is struggling with a math concept can ask for another explanation without feeling embarrassed about asking again.
There is also real potential for accessibility. Children with learning differences, language barriers, or specific support needs may benefit from tools that adjust the pace, repeat information patiently, or present information in different formats, including text, audio, and simplified language. And curiosity can be extended: a child who asks why the sky is blue can follow that question as far as their interest takes them, rather than forgetting it before an adult has time to look it up.
Importantly, these opportunities depend on how AI is used. The tool should encourage further thinking, questioning, and reflection, rather than provide an answer that simply ends the process. My honest answer is that the opportunity is real, but it is not automatic.
5. If children can ask AI to solve a problem, write a story or provide an answer immediately, could this affect skills such as problem-solving, patience, creativity, or independent thinking? How can we encourage children to use AI without allowing it to do the thinking for them?
Yes, and the concern is increasingly supported by evidence rather than intuition alone. A recent fMRI study of children using ChatGPT found lower engagement in areas associated with cognitive control, attention, and creativity compared with children working without it. More broadly, research suggests overreliance on AI for assignments may affect critical thinking, creativity, and autonomy.
Problem solving and creativity are not skills children develop by receiving correct answers. They are built through the experience of struggling with a question, getting something wrong, and trying again. That struggle can be uncomfortable, but it is productive. When AI removes too much of it, it can unintentionally undermine the learning process it appears to support.
At the same time, AI can support creativity and persistence when children collaborate with it rather than simply defer to it. For example, they can use it for prompts or guiding questions instead of finished answers. The deciding factor is therefore not simply whether a child uses AI, but how the child uses it.
6. What role could AI play in the classroom, and how might it change the role of teachers in the years ahead?
I think AI is more likely to change the teacher's function than replace the teacher.
Teachers have traditionally spent a significant amount of time delivering information and explaining concepts to groups of children at roughly the same pace. AI can take over some of that repetitive work. That could allow teachers to focus more on what they are uniquely well-placed to do, including facilitating discussion, mentoring, noticing when a particular child is struggling emotionally or academically, and building relationships that help children feel safe enough to take risks and make mistakes.
Personalized AI tools may also give teachers insight into which children need support and where. This could be particularly valuable for children who might otherwise be overlooked in a standardized classroom.
The risk is that the relationship itself becomes diluted. Teaching is not simply about transmitting information. A child's motivation, resilience, and social development are strongly influenced by relationships with caring adults who know them. If schools use AI primarily as an efficiency tool without protecting time for human connection, they risk weakening one of the most important elements of effective teaching.
My hope is that AI takes over some repetitive tasks so teachers have more time for relationships, not less. Whether that happens will depend on how schools choose to implement it.
7. AI can sometimes provide inaccurate, biased or inappropriate information. How can parents and educators teach children to question what AI tells them and develop strong digital literacy skills?
One useful habit is teaching children to ask AI the same question they might ask a classmate who makes a surprising claim: "How do you know that?"
AI can present information with confidence regardless of whether it is correct. Younger children in particular may interpret confidence as accuracy. Teaching children to pause, question the source, and check information rather than simply accepting the first answer is therefore an important digital literacy skill.
This works best when parents do it with children rather than simply lecturing them about it. When a child receives an AI-generated answer, parents can help them compare it with another source, such as a book, a trusted website or information from an adult. Over time, checking information can become an instinctive habit.
8. If you could give parents one guiding principle for raising children in an AI-shaped world, what would it be, and what is one thing you hope we never lose as technology becomes more sophisticated?
AI can support a child's learning, but connection is still built by people. Whenever you are deciding whether to let AI step in—whether for an answer, comfort or conversation—ask whether it is leading your child toward people, physical experience and the real world or away from them. That question cuts through much of the complexity.
The thing I hope we never lose is a child's tolerance for not knowing and their capacity for genuine connection. The patience to sit with a difficult question. The resilience that comes from struggling and eventually figuring something out. The empathy developed through a friend's disappointment, a sibling's anger or a conflict that has to be worked through face to face. The joy of moving, building, falling down, and getting back up.
These are not inefficiencies to be optimized away. They are where real development happens: cognitively, emotionally, socially and physically. My hope is that as AI becomes more capable and more present in children's lives, we become more deliberate, not less, about protecting the spaces where children can still struggle, play, move, connect and grow through the slow, sometimes frustrating and deeply human process of figuring things out for themselves.
About the Author
Susan Saxtorph is the founder of Little Humans Abroad. She is a trained social educator with a BA in Psychology and is deeply passionate about supporting Third Culture Kids. Having lived abroad with her family, she creates children's books and resources that help young children build resilience, process big feelings, and feel at home wherever they are in the world.