How To Raise Children In The AI Era

Your child has access to instant answers. They still need to learn which ones to trust.

AI can explain a tricky lesson, generate a backing track and finish a school poster before the glue has dried. It can also invent facts, expose private information and make it surprisingly easy to skip the learning altogether.

So how do you help your children enjoy the possibilities while developing judgement of their own?

In How to Raise Children in the AI Era, Tom Leeming explores the questions already arriving at the kitchen table. Drawing on life with two teenagers, experience coaching children, extensive everyday AI use and research, he offers a warm, balanced guide to parenting through a changing technological world.

You'll learn how to:

- Make homework help useful: distinguish explanation, feedback and practice from handing over the assignment.
- Give AI clearer instructions: use everyday prompt logic, then check what the tool actually produced.
- Keep children thinking: look beyond snippets, question confident answers and build independent understanding.
- Protect privacy and trust: discuss personal data, deepfakes, scams and AI companions.
- Make room for creativity: explore music, writing and ideas while keeping the child involved in the work.
- Prepare for what comes next: talk realistically about careers, future skills and growing independence.

You'll also find adaptable family agreements, questions for schools and practical exercises for parents of younger children and teenagers, with attention to different learning and support needs.

There is humour, too. Telling AI to "make me a poster" can be a little like telling a teenager to "clean your room". The result may look excellent until you check under the bed.

You don't need to become an AI expert to begin. You need a clearer conversation, a few useful habits and a place to start.