For kids and young adults, there’s no do over with AI
I spend my days leading parts of a global marketing team, operationalizing AI across parts of the organization, and constantly thinking about what it means to work in a world that is being fundamentally restructured in real time. Then, in the evening, I’m home with my eight and five-year old, watching them learn and experiment, trying to figure out how I set them up for future success. For a while those felt like separate problems. They're not anymore. And lately, the clock feels like it's running.
And there’s so much change. AI tools do more and more every day, there’s constant research on the benefits and on the harms, particularly to our kids. Some suggest that kids are self-reporting that AI is making them worse at thinking. That’s worrisome, we should do something. But that’s only part of the story.
We have gone too hard on the cheating narrative
I’ve said it before in one of my recent blogs, and I’ll say it here again. Loudly. When AI showed up, the conversation that followed was very focused on cheating. Could kids use it to write papers they didn't write? Could they pass tests without understanding the material? Yes, they could. And so the tool has been treated as a threat to integrity and learning. Which meant kids learned one thing very quickly: AI use is something you hide. Something you use so you don’t have to think.
When the dominant frame for a tool is this is how you get away with something, that's the behavior you get. Kids aren't using AI to think less because the tool is inherently making them passive. They're using it to skip steps because that's what they were shown it's for. The self-reports of cognitive decline are scary, but not because they’re 100% accurate. Because that’s what kids have been told they are doing with AI.
We can get in front of this (and we need to)
This is going to be easier with my five and eight-year old, than it is with current teens (14-18). The 18-year-olds are who I am most worried about. They grew up with enough access to form real habits, with not a lot of guidance on how to use the tool with intention. Now they are about to enter a workforce that no one can describe yet. Not parents, not future employers, not the companies building the tools. Entry-level work needs to be redefined with AI in mind. And those entering the workforce will need to adapt to that. And they don’t have the skills to right now.
Younger kids are different. The habits aren’t set, the frame isn’t fixed. We have more runway to influence and guide.
Let’s not do social media again
I’m not going to spend a lot of time here. We know the issues. We watched the research come in, watched the effects accumulate, and then spent years trying to undo habits and relationships with technology that had already formed. We know how that story goes.
AI is moving faster than social media did. The decisions we make now — about how we introduce this tool to young kids, what frame we give it, what we model when we use it in front of them — will shape the relationship they have with it for the rest of their lives. We don't get a lot of second chances on something like this. The window where habits are still forming is now.
Showing your thinking is the skill, on paper or on screen
We need kids and adults to show an expansion of thinking when using AI. They have to show the work they do within the system.
Think about what it actually takes to get something useful out of AI. You have to know what you want. You have to have an IDEA. You have to give it real context. You have to evaluate what comes back, push on what's wrong, redirect when it misses the point, and bring your own perspective to the parts that only you can supply. That process — the prompts (don’t you dare just do one), the context, the judgment, the place where your POV was irreplaceable — that's not a shortcut. That's a skill. And in most professional settings I can think of, it's becoming a primary one.
That’s the version of AI literacy we need to start instilling in our kids and that starts with how assignments are structured. They need to be told to use AI, but then they show their stream of work within the system. And that’s only one part, they also need to learn without the technology too.
Always start with what you want to build, not the problem you want to solve
When a child comes in with an idea — a story they want to tell, a game they want to design, a costume for a character they invented — they are already in the driver's seat. The thinking happened before the tool opened. AI is there to help them execute the vision, not generate one on their behalf. When the starting point is their homework problem or an assignment they're trying to get through, the dynamic flips. The tool is leading and they're following. That's where the outsourcing lives.
This is the core of the Idea → AI → Play™ framework: kids come in as the creative directors, AI works in the middle, and the output becomes the raw material for something real and hands-on at the end. A story they act out. A recipe they cook. A coloring page they print and make their own. AI is never the ending point — it's always the middle. And the whole thing only works if the idea belongs to the kid before the tool ever opens. Every activity on the site is built around that sequence on purpose.
When you're there with them, you're also modeling something they don't have yet: the instinct to evaluate what comes out rather than just accept it. What did AI get right? What felt off? What would you change? Those questions — asked out loud, in the moment, in front of your kid — are teaching them to think about the tool, not just through it. That's the difference between a child who uses AI and one who knows how to use AI.
Things you can do right now
Start with the idea. Your kids have tons of these. Any many don’t seem actionable, until maybe now. Ask your kid what they wish existed — a game, a story, an invention — and open AI together from there. When the idea is theirs first, they stay in the driver's seat. The thinking is already visible before the tool is even open.
Ask what they think before they ask AI. Before they open it for help with something, one question: What do you think? It doesn't have to be right. The point is the habit — forming a thought before reaching for the tool.
After, talk about what it got wrong. Close the laptop and spend five minutes on it. What surprised you? What was off? What would you change? Getting kids to evaluate the output rather than just accept it is where the real skill builds. You're not just using AI together. You're teaching them to think about it — and eventually, to show that thinking to a teacher, a collaborator, an employer.
The research is worth paying attention to. But the story it's telling is more specific than "AI makes kids think less." It's telling us that the wrong frame produces the wrong habits, and we gave a lot of kids the wrong frame at exactly the wrong time. The ones who are eighteen now are going to have to work through that. The younger ones don't have to inherit it.
We still have time to give them something better. That's the whole reason to move now.