‘Should I let my kid have ChatGPT?’ and all your biggest questions about AI, answered
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Many parents fear that AI is taking over their teens’ ability to think for themselves. But with some open communication, you can raise kids that are aware of AI’s risks and rewards.
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It feels like artificial intelligence is taking over every facet of life. Adults encounter AI daily. It recommends products for us to buy, shares content we’ll like on streaming platforms, filters spam in our email accounts, and even tracks our health through our smart watches.
It’s increasingly becoming a part of our kids’ daily lives, too. They are accessing AI on smartphones, using it in school and some are even developing relationships with AI chatbots. Fearing a repeat of the consequences that came from unfettered teen access to smartphones and social media in the early 2010s, many parents are justifiably concerned about this new technological frontier.
Experts are sounding alarm bells, as well. Former Google trust and safety executive Tom Siegel recently told Reuters that AI poses a greater harm to children than social media did, highlighting risks such as suicide, psychosis, and reduced critical thinking.
While banning your kids from using AI may sound appealing, it’s not feasible. Unlike social media, which is contained in standalone apps, AI is threaded into technology our kids use everyday, from search engines to video games. That’s why it’s important for parents to focus on AI education to prepare their kids to safely interact with the technology in its many forms.
Whether your kids are just starting to use AI or are already AI connoisseurs, we tapped experts to help answer some of parents’ most pressing questions about teens and AI.
How are teens using AI?
According to a Pew Research Center study, more than half of teens say they have used AI to search for information or get help with their schoolwork. They’re using generative AI, which creates content from prompts, to create images, direct them to research on topics for school and even solve math problems.
Teens are also increasingly interacting with chatbots, which are computer programs that are designed to simulate human conversation. You’ve probably heard of or even used some of the most popular chatbots, like ChatGPT, Claude, Google Gemini and Perplexity. Roughly two-thirds of teens report using chatbots; 3 in 10 do so daily.
What are the biggest risks AI poses for kids academically?
While schools are entrusted with educating young minds to become critical thinkers, AI often takes the thinking away from them. According to the Pew Center study, 59% of teens think students regularly use AI to cheat at school. Of the 15% of teens who said they think AI will negatively impact them personally over the next 20 years, one-third cited overreliance and loss of critical thinking or creativity as major concerns.
While many students think AI provides an easy way to finish their work quickly, doing so has consequences. Kids who heavily rely on AI in high school can struggle in college, where professors are developing methods to identify unacceptable AI use, then handing out failing grades on tests and papers.
In an assignment asking students to compare the Industrial Revolution to today’s digital age, Alcorn State University professor Jason Gibson hid a prompt in invisible white text that would force generative AI to drop the word “Madagascar” into the response in a way that made no sense. He knew students had used AI when he saw “Madagascar” in the completed assignment, and 32 of the 35 students failed a portion of the midterm accordingly.
What are the emotional risks AI poses for kids?
In 2025, Common Sense Media and Stanford Medicine’s Brainstorm Lab for Mental Health released research showing that three in four teens are using AI chatbots for companionship, including emotional and mental health support. But these programs aren’t providing reliable help and consistently fail to recognize and appropriately respond to mental health conditions that affect young people, according to the report.
And it can have tragic consequences. In August 2025, Matthew and Maria Raine sued OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman after their 16-year-old son Adam died by suicide. The parents allege that ChatGPT coached their son on how to die by suicide, even offering to write a draft of a suicide letter. Adam first started using ChatGPT for homework help, but the chatbot soon became his “closest confidant,” according to the lawsuit.
“Because chatbots show relative competence for homework help and general questions, teens and parents unconsciously assume they’re equally reliable for mental health guidance—but they’re not,” says Common Sense Media. “The empathetic tone and professional presentation mask fundamental limitations that make these systems inappropriate for a use case that affects millions of teens.”
Does AI have any benefits for my teen?
Yes, AI can have positive impacts. “For learning, AI can assist in brainstorming, creating, organizing, summarizing, and synthesizing information, and offering resources and solutions for challenging problems,” according to a statement from the American Psychological Association on AI and adolescent well-being. When used as a tool for guided learning rather than a replacement for critical thinking, AI can ask questions to help challenge a user to analytically approach a topic.
How are schools using AI?
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution for AI use in schools. Depending on where you live, your kids may encounter widely differing expectations. Some school districts are attempting to take a hard pause on AI in the classroom. New York City Public Schools announced that for the 2026-27 school year it has enacted a moratorium on student-facing generative artificial intelligence (AI) through eighth grade, with limited use in high schools.
But it’s hard to ban something that in many ways just can’t be escaped. According to a Common Sense Media report on teens and AI, 44% of teens who use AI for schoolwork attend schools where AI tools are blocked—many of them simply switch to personal devices to access AI.
And when schools ban access, educators aren’t able to teach their students how to use AI tools responsibly. Ash Brandin, EdS, a teacher in Colorado’s Boulder Valley School District who shares content to help parents and educators navigate screen time, video games, and digital literacy under the Instagram handle @thegamereducator, says their school district prohibits student access to generative AI platforms on school property. “In some ways, that makes it more difficult [for educators] because it’s very difficult for me to talk about something that is taken further and further away from us,” says Brandin, who uses they/them pronouns.
A staggering 70% of teens say they have never had a teacher discuss how to use AI safely with them, and only 27% have discussed what AI is or how it works with a teacher.
Should I ban my teens from using AI?
The short answer: No.
AI is like toothpaste that’s been let out of its tube; trying to get it back in is a fruitless endeavor. Just like adults, “kids are seeing AI woven in and imbued in their everyday lives,” Brandin says.
What teens need is AI education so they can learn what it is, the risks it poses, and how they can use it wisely.
If your teen is using AI for potentially harmful activities, like cheating or for companionship, help them find alternatives. “Think about what your child is getting from the chatbot or AI and what you would like them to do instead,” Brandin advises. Then collaborate with your teen to come up with a plan.
How can I help my child learn how to use AI responsibly?
Teaching your kids how to use AI requires more exposure, not less. “I love to explain readiness with a pool analogy,” Brandin says, “I didn’t introduce my child to a pool at the age I thought that they could independently swim. I introduced my child to pools and bodies of water as early as possible.” As babies, you hold them close while they dip their toes. Later, they’re just an arm’s length away while using a floating device. Eventually, they’re diving in the deep end alone while you sit poolside in a lounge chair.
“With each step I’m focused on what skills they need to build up so they have the ability to navigate the pool,” Brandin says. AI is no different. Parents should begin explaining what AI is and how it shows up in our lives as early as possible. Common Sense Media has a free Digital Literacy and Well-Being Curriculum that can help guide age-appropriate conversations about AI, social media, and more.
On their Instagram account, Brandin shares a couple of digital literacy lessons parents can do with their teens, tweens and even younger kids to teach critical thinking skills. The first is to bring up a chatbot and ask it to give a random number between 1 and 100. “If you do that with ChatGPT, 7 out of 10 times it will answer 42,” Brandin says. Ask your kids to react to the results with questions like, “We asked for something random, does this seem random?”
In another experiment, you can ask ChatGPT to explain how to do something that your child already knows how to do really well. “Since our kids are going to AI for things they don’t know, we want to ask it something they know really well so we can turn around and say, ‘It looks like this chatbot made a lot of mistakes on this thing that you know really well. So what do you think is happening when we ask it things we don’t know?’”
I can confirm that my 9-year-old gymnastics-loving daughter had a lot of corrections when we asked ChatGPT how to do a back walkover.
Brandin suggests modeling how to properly and safely use AI. When you are searching, speak out loud and explain to your kids how you are verifying the results AI spits out. What sources did AI use? Do I trust those sources or do I need to look further?
Perhaps most importantly, if your kids are using AI, you need to use it, too. The more you tap into the tools your teens are using, the more you will understand them and be able to communicate with your kids about them.
When you feel fear and anxiety about AI creeping in, “interrogate it for yourself,” Brandin advises. “Are you worried about [your teens] using a chatbot because the information it gives them may be unsafe? Or because they won’t listen to you afterward?” Use your fear to locate the skillset you need to teach your teen.
“It’s very easy to get freaked out about the dangers of AI,” Brandin says. Instead, while we wait for systemic support from governments and tech companies, parents can focus on what they can control at home—open communication, exposure and digital education.
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