Florita Bell Griffin, Ph.D.
By Florita Bell Griffin, Ph.D. | Houston, TX | October 13, 2026
Children growing up today may never remember a world without artificial intelligence. They can already ask AI to explain homework, create pictures, write stories, answer questions, suggest games, translate languages, produce music, and carry on conversations. For adults who grew up with encyclopedias, libraries, handwritten school reports, and early search engines, the change can be difficult to fully appreciate. For a child, asking a machine for an immediate personalized answer may soon feel as ordinary as asking Google does today.
This creates extraordinary educational possibilities. A child struggling with fractions can ask for the idea to be explained in another way. A student who does not understand a paragraph in a textbook can request a simpler explanation. A young person curious about dinosaurs, astronomy, African history, architecture, agriculture, music, or robotics can continue asking questions as long as curiosity lasts. AI can respond without embarrassment, impatience, or the pressure some children feel when they are afraid of asking what they think is a “stupid” question.
For students with different learning needs, this can be especially valuable. One child may understand a concept best through an example. Another may need a step-by-step explanation. Someone learning English may want unfamiliar words translated. A student with reading difficulties may benefit from a simpler version of complicated material. When used thoughtfully, AI can provide a level of individual assistance that teachers and parents may not always have time to provide immediately.
The concern begins when assistance replaces learning. A child can now ask AI to write an essay, solve a homework assignment, answer questions, create a book report, or prepare a presentation. The work may look excellent even though the student has learned very little. A beautifully written essay is not evidence that the student understands how to develop an idea, organize an argument, examine evidence, or express an original thought.
Parents and grandparents therefore need to help children understand the difference between using AI to learn and using AI to escape learning. Asking, “Can you explain this math problem another way?” supports understanding. Asking, “Give me the answer so I can turn it in,” usually does not. Asking for feedback on a paragraph the student wrote can improve writing. Asking AI to write the entire assignment may prevent the child from developing the skill the assignment was intended to teach. The technology is the same. The purpose makes the difference.
Children also need to know that AI can be wrong. This may be one of the most important lessons adults can teach. AI often communicates in polished, confident language. A young person may naturally assume that an answer presented so clearly must be correct. Yet AI can misunderstand a question, provide outdated information, invent details, or state something inaccurately.
Adults can turn these mistakes into lessons. Ask a child to verify an AI answer using a textbook, reliable website, or another trustworthy source. Ask, “How do we know this is true?” Encourage the child to identify where the information came from. This develops a habit of verification that will be useful far beyond AI.
Children also need to understand that not everything online represents a real person or real event. AI-generated images, voices, videos, influencers, and social-media accounts are becoming more convincing. A child may encounter a realistic image of something that never happened or communicate with an account operated partly or entirely by software. Media literacy now requires more than knowing that photographs can be edited. Young people must understand that complete digital realities can be manufactured.
Privacy deserves equal attention. Children and teenagers may speak casually with AI because conversation feels personal. They may share their names, schools, locations, family details, fears, friendships, or personal problems without thinking about how digital information is handled. Parents should teach children that an AI conversation is still an interaction with a computer system. Personal information deserves the same care it would receive elsewhere online.
The issue becomes more complicated with AI companions. Some systems are designed to converse over long periods, respond emotionally, remember preferences, and behave like supportive friends. A young person who feels lonely or misunderstood may form a strong attachment to such a system. The interaction may provide comfort, but the child should understand what the relationship actually is.
An AI system can simulate interest and empathy through language. It does not experience friendship as another human being does. It does not share a childhood, have feelings, carry responsibility for the child’s welfare, or participate in the real community surrounding that young person. Children should not be taught that every emotional response generated by a machine represents an emotional experience inside the machine.
This does not mean parents need to prohibit every AI tool. Complete prohibition may leave children less prepared for technology they will encounter throughout education, employment, and adult life. Guided use is likely to be more effective. Parents and grandparents can explore AI with children, ask questions together, compare answers, and discuss what the system does well and where it fails.
Adults can also encourage children to use AI creatively without allowing it to consume creativity. A child might write a story first and then ask AI for ideas about how to improve it. Someone interested in art can create original drawings and also experiment with image-generation tools. A student planning a science project can brainstorm with AI but still design and understand the project independently.
Children should continue having experiences that do not involve intelligent assistance. They should read books without immediately requesting summaries, solve problems before asking for answers, draw pictures from imagination, play outdoors, talk with other people, build things, make mistakes, become bored, and figure out what to do next. Boredom itself can be productive because it forces the mind to invent.
The ability to work through frustration is also important. Learning often involves moments when the answer is not immediately available. If AI removes every difficult step, children may lose opportunities to develop persistence. There is value in struggling with a problem for a while before receiving help.
Schools and families will continue debating appropriate rules, but one principle can remain simple: children should know what they themselves are capable of doing. If AI completes every difficult intellectual task, a student may receive good grades without developing confidence in his or her own abilities.
Parents and grandparents have an important role because AI literacy is not merely a school subject. It involves values, judgment, privacy, honesty, relationships, and understanding when technology should be used at all.
The children growing up today will likely interact with increasingly capable artificial intelligence throughout their lives. Knowing how to operate those systems will probably become easy. Knowing when to question them, when to verify them, when to turn them off, and when another human being matters more may prove much more important.
We are not simply teaching children how to use a new technology. We are helping them decide what kind of relationship they will have with intelligent machines. If adults teach curiosity without dependence, openness without gullibility, and technological skill without surrendering independent thought, AI can become a powerful educational tool while the child remains firmly at the center of the learning.
© 2026 Truth Seekers Journal. Published with permission from the author. All rights reserved.
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