I work at Google, but my child learns AI

coexisting with – A parent who spends their days helping organizations adopt AI describes how, after years of keeping their 8-year-old mostly offline, everyday questions began driving them back to tools like ChatGPT. The shift isn’t just about adding tech at home—it’s about bui

For eight years, I raised my daughter with nearly no access to tech—apart from weekend family movie nights. It started as a decision I chose on purpose, knowing it would test me as a parent. The hardest part wasn’t the technology itself. It was the endless “I’m bored” tantrums, and how quickly “no” becomes the easy path when you’re tired.

At restaurants, I pulled out “mommy’s bag of tricks”: glitter, games, and glue. My phone stayed off limits.

Then the glitter phase faded. As she grew older. I started noticing something I couldn’t unsee—her peer group leaning into technology in ways I wasn’t. In class. my daughter’s work has mostly stayed with poster boards. and while she’s had brief experience with PowerPoint. her friends were creating Canva presentations and videos. They also used Pinterest for inspiration.

I began to realize that refusing technology didn’t only protect her—it also insulated me. By saying no for so long, I avoided having to face the reality of the moment head-on. Now I needed a conscious plan for introducing technology, one that matched our family values and what I believe matters.

It started with a simple request: she told me to ask ChatGPT.

We were on a car ride to school, talking through homework. A word came up she didn’t understand. I couldn’t explain it well enough. so I grabbed my phone and asked ChatGPT to explain the term to an 8-year-old. The answer fit the assignment, and she breezed through the next step—writing a sentence using the word. I treated it like something normal. A quick fix. No big deal.

A few days later, at the park doing homework, the same situation returned. This time we weren’t in our usual rush. I had the time to think and decide what kind of lesson this could be. Instead of taking the easy button, I pushed her.

“What do you think the word means?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she replied.

“Does it sound like a positive or negative word?” I pressed.

“I don’t know. Mom, ugh, can you just ask ChatGPT?”

Her frustration landed hard—not because she asked for help, but because of what it exposed. For years, I had been “shielding” her from technology, yet she had been watching me closely. She’d seen me text, scroll, and lately converse with AI. When she hit a wall. she didn’t have to imagine an alternative—she was mirroring my own habit of outsourcing thinking in a pinch.

I kept pushing anyway. Her memory flickered, and she found the answer herself.

After that, I realized what I’d been able to build, and what she hadn’t. I’ve had the luxury of developing my own critical thinking skills. I’ve had time to struggle, to sit with problems, and to spend endless hours figuring them out. She hasn’t.

When I tell her it’s OK to fail—but then I hand her an “easy button” to the world’s information—I’m taking away two chances at once. The chance to fail. And the chance to struggle and learn from it.

So we started setting rules. Some of them are mine. Some of them are now hers.

The reality, I’ve come to believe, is that we need to learn to coexist with technology—and build a home environment that supports growth in and out of the classroom.

Before bringing AI into the mix, we do a few things. First: pause and reflect. We stop long enough to imagine what an answer could look like. We take time to wonder and solve an issue ourselves. We also play and come up with impossible answers, just to keep the brain moving without defaulting to quick certainty.

Second: a fact-checking game. If there’s something we don’t understand, we look up a video or an article and try to find the opposite answer. I point out that asking questions in different ways can yield different results.

Third: ask a human. I encourage her to ask a friend or family member what they think—then get curious about other people’s perspectives.

I also did my own soul-searching about my values. What I believe now is that parenting in the age of AI isn’t primarily about teaching a child how to use the tool to make something impressive or efficient. They’ll pick up those skills eventually. The point is to teach her to still think for herself and be creative with her thoughts. even inside a system that makes it effortless not to.

It’s also about preserving the small inconveniences that other services have stripped away with same day delivery and instant answers. It means making space for intentional delayed gratification—so there are room for agitation, sighs, and eye rolls, the kind that come from work that isn’t automatic.

AI parenting ChatGPT Google employee technology rules at home critical thinking delayed gratification fact-checking game homework learning