Do Not Disturb · AI and parenting
AI and Parenting
with Dr Akshi Kumar
AI can write the essay. What is your child learning? I asked AI researcher Dr Akshi Kumar about homework, trust and the thinking children need to keep doing for themselves.
Watch the conversation or listen to the audio episode. The RSS button opens the full podcast feed.
The Do Not Disturb edit
Three things to take with you.
Three ideas from the conversation, in our words.
Do
Ask your child what they think before asking AI for an answer.
Not
Let a convincing response stand in for checking the facts.
Disturb
The pressure to hand in a perfect essay instead of learning how to write one.
The homework question parents are already facing
When my son asked why he should write an essay when AI could do it from three bullet points, I told him he should still write it. Then I struggled to explain why. That’s one of the questions I brought to Akshi.
Akshi brings the perspective of an AI researcher and a mother. She describes talking through an essay with her own son before trying an AI tool: his ideas, his story and what he wanted to say. When the output did not capture it, they had something useful to discuss. Producing a finished essay was different from expressing his own idea.
What comes up
- ChatGPT, homework and children’s independent thinking.
- Helping children question an AI answer and check where it comes from.
- Parental involvement, trust and conversations about technology.
- Meal planning, reminders and the invisible work mothers carry.
You don’t have to become an AI expert
Akshi argues that parents need enough understanding to have an informed conversation with their children. She talks about asking whether an answer is correct, where it came from and whether a child agrees with it.
Her optimism about AI comes with questions about how it is designed, where it is used and which decisions people let it make. That gives parents more to work with than either pretending it will disappear or accepting every output at face value.
And what could it take off a mother’s plate?
The conversation also turns to groceries, schedules, school activities and reminders. Akshi discusses how help with these small jobs could make a busy mother’s day easier. She asks why time saved should automatically mean another job to do.
The distinction matters: children need opportunities to develop their own thinking, while mothers may welcome help with the tasks that keep a household moving. Those are different uses of the same technology.
Keep this page open
A few things to try at home
These ideas come from Akshi’s examples in our conversation. The steps below are my summary, rather than direct quotations. Follow your child’s school rules on AI use.
Before the essay, have the conversation
Ask your child what they want to say. Get their ideas down first. If AI is allowed for the assignment, compare its suggestions with that outline: what has it missed or changed? Use feedback to revise their own writing.
Make a character map, then check it
Akshi used ChatGPT through her own account to help her son with school reading. Make a map of the characters and their relationships, then check each claim against the text. Finding the mistakes is part of the exercise.
She mentions Macbeth and An Inspector Calls as school texts they worked on together, rather than a personal reading list.
Ask three questions about an answer
Is it right? Where did it come from? Do you agree? Pick one claim and check it together. Akshi describes looking at wrong answers with her son so that questioning the tool becomes normal.
Give it one household job
Meal plans, grocery lists and reminders come up too. Try a first draft of a shopping list from meals you have already chosen, then check it yourself. If it saves you time, you don’t have to fill that time with another task.
The book Akshi mentions
Kiaan & Novi: Learning AI the Fun Way
By Akshi Kumar and Malini Nair. A children’s storybook series for ages 6–10, introducing AI through stories and questions. Akshi talks about writing it during our conversation.
Explore the book on Akshi’s website ↗Her book page includes the current Amazon link.
Meet the guest
Dr Akshi Kumar
Dr Akshi Kumar is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Computing at Goldsmiths, University of London, and a member of the UK government’s Expert Panel for Growing up in an Online World. Her research includes how AI chatbots respond to children’s emotional vulnerability. She also brings her experience as a mother to this conversation.