What we’re really afraid of our kids losing to AI: Their imaginations

At this moment, an AI-generated song has topped the Billboard charts. And, if you’re a parent paying any attention to AI, that freaks you out. It makes you think: What does this mean for our kids? For human creativity? For all of those piano lessons and art classes we’re paying for?

I was on an international flight recently, and I watched The Greatest Showman for the first time. I know, I know, where have I been? The movie is so good. I mean, really good.

The music. The choreography. The imagination. After all, it’s based on a man who built his entire life around imaginative ideas that no one else believed in.

It made me think. Made me feel. Definitely made me cry.

And I realized: That is what we’re afraid of losing. This is what keeps parents up at night when they think about AI and their kids.

This fear has validity

We absolutely need to protect human creativity and imagination. Full stop.

When an AI-generated song can top the charts, when AI can produce art that looks professional, when it can write stories and scripts and marketing copy—what happens to the people who spent years developing those skills?

What happens to our kids' drive to create if a computer can do it faster and "better"?

I get it. The fear makes sense.

But here's what I've realized after six months (and counting!) of using AI with my 5- and 7-year-old: We are afraid for our kids because we’re projecting our adult experience onto them.

As we get older, we start to stunt our own creativity based on our experience and insecurities.

 I can’t draw like a professional artist.

I can’t write code.

I can’t play piano that good.

I can’t dance so I can’t choregraph.

So we stop trying, without even realizing it. We start imagining smaller and dream only within the boundaries of our “strongest” capabilities.

And now we see AI and think it’s going to be the thing that takes away kids’ limitless imagination.

But, in watching my sons, I see that: Kids don’t limit themselves yet. They haven’t learned to shrink their dreams.

My 7-year-old doesn't think "I can't draw well enough to make this." He just thinks "I want to make this."

He doesn't have insecurities about trying. He hasn't learned yet that he "can't."

And what if AI actually helps them never learn that?

What if, instead of killing their creativity, it keeps the gap between vision and execution small enough that they never have to stop dreaming big?

This generation might keep their creative confidence longer

Think about it:

We learned to shrink our dreams because we ran into walls. We tried to write a song and couldn't. We wanted to create art and it didn't look right. We had ideas for games or stories or inventions but didn't have the technical skills to build them.

So over time, we stopped trying. And we stayed in our lanes.

What if this generation doesn't have to do that?

What if they can keep the limitless thinking of childhood longer because the tools let them execute on their visions before they learn they "can't"?

The kids who succeed won't be the ones with the best technical skills.

They'll be the ones with the biggest imaginations and the determination to bring those visions to life.

Here’s what you do with your kids now to keep imagination front and center

Here's what works for me:

1. Start with their idea, always

Don't suggest what they should make. Ask them what they want to create. Listen to their vision first.

2. Let them describe it in detail before touching AI

Have them tell you (or draw, or act out) what they're imagining. The AI isn’t used until their idea is fully formed.

3. Make the AI output just the middle step

The AI-generated image or text or idea is never the finish line. It's raw material. What are they going to DO with it?

4. Let them surprise you

I keep being shocked by what my kids come up with. That means I'm not leading and neither is AI. They are.

5. Watch for them initiating their own ideas

When they start coming to you with "I want to make..." without you prompting them, that's when you know it’s working.

We need human creativity. Maybe AI can help protect and expand it.

So yes, that AI song on the Billboard charts is a signal. It's a wake-up call.

But maybe not in the way we think.

Maybe it's a reminder that we need to focus on building the next generation of imaginative, creative, determined humans who can use these tools to execute on visions we can't even fathom yet.

The kids who will create the next Greatest Showman aren't the ones who learned every technical skill by hand.

They're the ones who never stopped believing they could create something that moves people. That makes people feel something. That changes the way we see the world.

That's still imagination. That's still human.

AI is just the tool that helps them get there.