Digital Childhood Script Series
“Everyone uses AI for homework now.”
What to say
Not on your own until high school
"I know, homework takes forever and ChatGPT is right there. Until you're in high school, though, I don't want you using it on your own. I can be your tutor until then, or we can find you one if that makes sense for our family. If your teacher has you use it for an assignment, that's fine. Do it the way your teacher says and show me what you did."
With younger kids
"I know, sometimes homework feels really hard. When you get stuck, come get me and we'll figure it out together. Every time you figure it out yourself, it sticks in your brain, and ChatGPT can't do that part for you."
When they ask why high school
"Because by high school you've had elementary and middle school to build up your own thinking, and you're ready to figure more of this out on your own. I don't want to just say no forever. I want to give you a time when I think AI will actually help you and not get in the way of your learning. AI changes every day, though, so this is a conversation we're going to keep having."
What high school looks like
"Just because I'm saying you can use AI in high school doesn't mean you just get it with no rules. We're going to use it together. I'm going to show you where the risks are, I'm going to explain how it actually works, and then I'm going to show you how to make it a tool, a resource and a tutor, not a cheat tool and not a replacement for your brain. And at that point, you'll be old enough to be responsible with it."
About the everyone part
"Maybe a lot of kids are using ChatGPT. I believe you. That still doesn't tell me if they're asking it to explain the chapter or asking it to write the whole paper, and those are really different."
Say what AI actually is
"I get why you'd want to use it. It's right there and it gives you an answer instantly, and that's exactly why I'm being careful with it, because taking a shortcut now isn't going to help you later. It also helps to know what AI really is. It doesn't actually know things. It's been fed words from a million books and a million websites, and it just guesses what word comes next. That's why it can sound so sure of itself and still be totally wrong. If you ask it for a book on something really specific, it'll give you a title and an author for a book that doesn't even exist."
Help vs skipping
"When you're in high school and it's time, here's how I want you to use it. If you write your paragraph first and then ask it what's weak about it, you've learned something and your paragraph got better. If you ask it to write the paragraph for you, you've got nothing in your head two weeks later, and when your teacher asks you to explain it in front of the class, or your group project is counting on you, you won't know what to say. And always read what it gives you before you use it, because there's usually a sentence in there you'd never say or a fact that's wrong."
A quick way to check
"There's an easy way to check. See if you can explain it to me like I'm the one who missed class that day. If you can, you used it the right way, because it's actually in your head and you didn't just copy and paste it. If you can't, the AI did the thinking for you, and that'll show the minute you have to do the work without it."
When they say it's faster
"I know it's faster. ChatGPT can do Thursday's homework for you, but on Friday's quiz, the only thing you have is whatever you've learned in your brain. You don't have anything else there to help you."
Why this matters
Kids hear that everyone's using it, and some of them really are. In our house it waits until high school, but if it's a flat no with no exceptions, kids just end up using it on the school Chromebook where you'll never see it, so there's room for the assignments a teacher gives. Once it's time, keep the focus on what the assignment was supposed to teach them, because that's the part they can't really argue with.
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