A Parent's Guide to AI

The parent's guide at parentsguidetoai.ca is clear on one point: parents are entitled to ask questions about AI in their child's school, and different families will reach different conclusions about AI, and that is okay.

Mental health and technology have been in conversation for years, mostly focused on social media, screen time, and the effects of comparison culture on teenagers.

One of the challenges in writing about AI for parents is that "children" covers an enormous range.

The parent's guide at parentsguidetoai.ca lists accessibility as one of AI's most significant opportunities, noting that AI may help students who face challenges with reading, writing, language barriers, organization, and executive functioning.

The parent's guide at parentsguidetoai.ca covers copyright and intellectual property in Section 7, with a practical family guideline: "Use AI to help create your own work — not to copy someone else's."

Most of the conversations in this blog and in the parent's guide focus on how AI affects children.

When parents think about AI and children, they tend to think about ChatGPT.

The first time I hit a genuinely hard problem at work, I solve the whole thing by hand.

The parent's guide at parentsguidetoai.ca addresses academic integrity in its FAQ section with a direct answer: using AI to brainstorm or study may be acceptable; submitting AI-generated work as original work may violate school expectations.

The parent's guide at parentsguidetoai.ca includes a short section on AI companions and emotional dependency.

One of the questions I get most often from parents, friends, and colleagues is some version of: "Is it true that AI can just write software now?"

This post is a companion to Post 9 — Deepfakes Are Real: What Parents Need to See to Understand, which covers the harm side and what to do if your child is targeted.

Series wrap-up — the Try It Yourself series, 12 posts, blog.parentsguidetoai.ca When I started this series, I had one goal in mind: to help parents get past the point of reading about AI and into actually using it.

Part 12 of 12 in the Try It Yourself series — practical AI guidance for parents at blog.parentsguidetoai.ca If there's one honest thing to say about AI right now, it's this: what's true today may not be true in six months.

Part 11 of 12 in the Try It Yourself series — practical AI guidance for parents at blog.parentsguidetoai.ca Section 9 of the parent's guide includes a Family AI Agreement — a template that families can use to set shared expectations about how AI is used at

Part 10 of 12 in the Try It Yourself series — practical AI guidance for parents at blog.parentsguidetoai.ca When a computer gives you an answer, it can feel objective.

Part 9 of 12 in the Try It Yourself series — practical AI guidance for parents at blog.parentsguidetoai.ca This post is a bit different from the others.

Part 8 of 12 in the Try It Yourself series — practical AI guidance for parents at blog.parentsguidetoai.ca The parent's guide at parentsguidetoai.ca has a section on how AI can help students who face challenges with reading, writing, language barriers, or…

Part 7 of 12 in the Try It Yourself series — practical AI guidance for parents at blog.parentsguidetoai.ca In May 2026, the Vancouver School Board announced that eligible secondary students would have access to Microsoft Copilot 13+ through school account…

Part 6 of 12 in the Try It Yourself series — practical AI guidance for parents at blog.parentsguidetoai.ca We've spent a few posts looking at what AI gets wrong.

Part 5 of 12 in the Try It Yourself series — practical AI guidance for parents at blog.parentsguidetoai.ca AI makes mistakes that look exactly like correct answers.

Part 4 of 12 in the Try It Yourself series — practical AI guidance for parents at blog.parentsguidetoai.ca Before you spend much time with AI tools, there's one thing you need to understand.

Since publishing A Parent's Guide to Artificial Intelligence, I've heard from parents and educators in other provinces who want something similar — but specific to their jurisdiction.

Part 3 of 12 in the Try It Yourself series — practical AI guidance for parents at blog.parentsguidetoai.ca Once you decide to try AI yourself, the next question is: which one?

Part 2 of 12 in the Try It Yourself series — practical AI guidance for parents at blog.parentsguidetoai.ca Your child brings home an essay.

Part 1 of 12 in the Try It Yourself series — practical AI guidance for parents at blog.parentsguidetoai.ca My very first experience with parenting and AI came from a day my daughter spent at Ethọ́s Lab.

I became a parent in 2009, and again in 2011, and learning to parent in a fully connected age, with cell phones, tablets, and social media has been a constant challenge, and still challenges me every day.