This is the one I think about most — because it's not abstract for me. I've got two little ones, and they're going to grow up with this baked into everything. I don't have it all figured out. But here's where my head's at right now.
🧒 It's their normal, not their novelty
For our generation, AI is a new thing we're deciding how to feel about. For our kids it'll just be… there — like the internet was for us. Not exciting, not scary, just part of the furniture. That reframes the job. It's less "should they use it" and more "how do I help them use it well."
🧠 Thinking first, tool second
The thing I care about most: I want my kids to know how to think before they know how to outsource thinking. Do the hard sum yourself before you check it. Write the story from your own head before any help arrives. Form the opinion, then test it. The tool is brilliant once the foundation's there — and quietly corrosive if it replaces the foundation before it's even built. Order matters.
🛡️ The boundaries I'm landing on
Honestly still working these out, but roughly: be present (it's not a babysitter), age-appropriate tools only, and talk about it openly rather than banning it into the shadows. Same as I'd treat anything powerful — teach the why, not just the no. And model it, because they watch how I use it far more closely than they listen to what I say about it.
❤️ The screen tension (again)
You'll have heard me bang on about this. My whole thing with AI is using it to get off the screen and back into the actual world. With kids, that goes double. If the tech buys me time, I want that time spent at the beach, in the garden, being gloriously bored together — not handed straight back to another device. The point of the tool is the life around it.
🌱 Where I've landed (for now)
Curious, not fearful. Teach them to think first and lean on it second. Keep it all out in the open. And keep aiming the whole thing at more real life, not less. Ask me again in a year and I'll probably have changed my mind on the details — but not on that last part.