Why I never let AI be the end of the story
When people think about using AI with their kids, they tend to think of it as another screen, another technology that could stunt their child’s potential. The truth is the activity (no matter what it is) should ever end in the tool.
If we stop at the AI output — whether it’s a story, a recipe, or an image — the experience is incomplete. It’s like closing the book halfway through the plot. My kids don’t just need an output. They need the next step: the chance to shape it, respond to it, and make something of their own.
The problem with ending in AI
It shortcuts the most important part of learning. Kids miss out on persistence, problem-solving, and the satisfaction of making something themselves. And they see the technology as the authority and the decision maker. That is not the lesson we want them to take away.
Here’s what I’ve seen in our own home:
The Coloring Page
My son builds a LEGO castle, and we use AI to incorporate it into or inspire a coloring page. That could be the end. But if we stop there, he’s just staring at a screen. Instead, we print it, talk about it and he colors it to make it truly his own.The Dig Site
My kids start with a fossil “dig,” then use AI to identify their finds or imagine what they could be. If the activity ended with AI’s answer, that would be the story. Instead, they journal, sketch artifacts, and set up their own “museum exhibit.” The tool isn’t the conclusion — it’s a step in their discovery.The Character Creator
The kids describe a superhero that doesn’t exist yet. AI helps them visualize what that character might look like. But the real play begins when they dig into the costume bin and become that superhero themselves. The output is only useful because it sparks what happens next.
In each case, AI is in the middle of the process, never at the end.
The lesson for families (and adults/professional too!)
When kids stop in the tool, they consume. When they move beyond it, they create. That’s where confidence, adaptability, and persistence grow.
The same principle applies at work. If you stop at the AI draft, the first slide deck, the bullet-point summary, the auto-generated design, you’ve missed the point. AI is not the conclusion. The outcome only matters when people take what the tool provides and apply judgment, creativity, or action.
How to keep AI from becoming the end
If you want to avoid letting AI activities stop short, ask one simple question:
“What happens next?”
After the image → What can be built, drawn, or performed?
After the story → How can it be acted out, rewritten, or extended?
After the recipe → What happens when you actually make it, taste it, and adjust it?
The answer is where the real (human) output lies.
Always continue on in the real world
That’s why none of our family AI activities end in the tool. They always continue into the real world with paint, costumes, cardboard, or conversations that deepen the experience.
Our Dig Site to Discovery guide follows this pattern: it starts with play, uses AI in the middle, and then returns to kids’ own storytelling. The same is true of our upcoming Character Creator. Imagination begins the process, AI helps shape it, and then kids step back into play.
Because AI is most valuable when it isn’t the ending. It’s the middle step that helps kids (and adults) take their ideas further than the tool could ever do on its own.