Ask a child about how something works now, and chances are you will get an answer before you even finish typing your question. Information via AI has become fast, cheap, and easily accessible like never before. For a generation growing up in this environment, the real skill worth nurturing isn’t knowing how to get the answer; it’s learning how to ask the right question. And that responsibility sits as much with parents, in how they encourage curiosity at home and value a good question as much as a good answer, as it does with the tools children use.
Better than complimenting a right answer that was fast: Better praise the good question, the challenging “why,” and go with out of the box thinking which none of the other participants in the room. This does not mean telling kids to avoid AI, which is a futile exercise — and arguably for the best. It’s about what we promote at home. Instead of asking kids the answer, parents would do well to ask kids what they would do if they wanted to find out. That little change in what gets rewarded at home accomplishes far more to nurture independent thought than any restriction on screen time ever could. Children are trained to value the process of solving a problem, not just being fast in the answer – and that instinct will be precisely what they need when things get tougher than any AI can solve for them.