A Parent's Guide to AI Safety for Children

As a parent and someone who works in data and AI professionally, I hear the same question from nearly every parent I meet: "Is AI safe for my child?"

The honest answer: it depends entirely on how they use it. AI tools aren't inherently dangerous, but they do come with real risks that most children (and many adults) aren't equipped to navigate without guidance.

The good news is that keeping your child safe with AI doesn't require a computer science degree. It requires the same thing most parenting challenges require — clear rules, open conversations, and age-appropriate boundaries.

Here's your practical guide.

The Golden Rule: Never Share Personal Information

This is the single most important rule, and it's worth making non-negotiable in your household:

Your child should never type their real name, address, phone number, school name, age, or any identifying information into any AI tool.

Why? Because most AI tools use conversation data for training or improvement. Even tools with strong privacy policies can have data breaches, policy changes, or unintended data retention. Once personal information goes into an AI system, you lose control over where it ends up.

Make It Concrete

For younger children, frame it simply: "Anything you type into an AI tool is like writing it on a postcard — anyone might be able to read it eventually."

For older children, explain the mechanics: AI companies often store conversations, and those conversations may be reviewed by employees, used to train future models, or exposed in security incidents.

Practical rules to establish:

Use a nickname or character name instead of their real name
Never share photos of themselves or family members
If a tool asks to create an account, a parent handles the setup
Never type anything they wouldn't want a stranger to read

Which AI Tools Are Appropriate by Age

Not all AI tools are created equal when it comes to child safety. Here's a practical breakdown:

Ages 8–10: Supervised, Creative Tools Only

At this age, every AI interaction should happen with a parent present.

Safer options:

Craiyon (craiyon.com) — AI image generation, no account required, family-friendly filters
Microsoft Copilot — Free with a Microsoft account, includes safety filters
Google's AI experiments — Educational, well-moderated

Avoid at this age: Open-ended chatbots like unrestricted ChatGPT, any tools requiring a personal account your child manages alone

Ages 11–13: Guided Independence

Children in this range can begin using AI more independently, but with guardrails.

Safer options:

ChatGPT (free tier) with a parent-managed account — Review conversations periodically
Microsoft Copilot — Good safety defaults, integrated into familiar tools
Suno (suno.com) — AI music generation, creative and fun, parent-managed account

Guidelines: Check in on what they're creating weekly. Keep AI tools on shared family devices rather than personal phones. Establish that AI is for creative projects and learning — not a replacement for homework.

Ages 14–18: Responsible Autonomy

Teenagers can use most AI tools independently, but they need a strong ethical framework.

Broader access is OK, with clear expectations:

They understand AI's limitations and biases
They never submit AI-generated work as their own without disclosure
They're thoughtful about what they share in AI conversations
They come to you when something feels off

How to Supervise Without Hovering

One of the trickiest parts of AI safety is balancing protection with independence. Here are approaches that work:

Co-create first, then step back. Do a few AI projects together before letting your child work independently. This builds shared language and expectations. When they say, "I made this with AI," you'll both know what that means.

Ask to see what they've made, not what they've typed. Instead of reading every conversation, ask your child to show you their finished projects. This respects their autonomy while keeping you in the loop. If something seems off, you can dig deeper.

Make it a regular topic, not a surveillance exercise. Just like you'd ask about their day at school, ask about what they've been doing with AI. "Show me the coolest thing you made with AI this week" is a much better conversation starter than "Let me check your chat history."

Keep AI tools in common spaces for younger children. For children under 13, AI tools should live on shared family devices in common areas of your home — the same principle as keeping the family computer in the living room.

Teaching Critical Thinking About AI Outputs

One of the biggest safety risks with AI isn't privacy — it's trust. Children (and adults) tend to assume that because AI sounds confident, it must be correct.

Teach your child these principles:

AI makes things up. Language models can generate completely fabricated information with the same confident tone as factual statements. In the AI field, these are called "hallucinations." Your child needs to understand that AI doesn't know things — it predicts what words should come next.

Always verify important claims. If AI says something factual, look it up. This is actually a wonderful critical thinking exercise. When children fact-check AI, they're building research skills that transfer to evaluating all information sources.

AI reflects biases in its training data. AI systems are trained on data from the internet, which contains every bias humans have. Your child should understand that AI outputs can be biased by gender, race, culture, and many other factors — not because the AI is "trying" to be biased, but because it learned from biased data.

Just because you can generate something doesn't mean you should. AI tools are powerful, and some children will test boundaries. Talk about the ethical dimension of AI creation — from deepfakes to misinformation to intellectual property. These conversations are more effective before problems arise.

Five Safety Rules to Post on Your Fridge

We recommend printing these out and making them a visible part of your home:

I protect my privacy. I never share my real name, address, school, phone number, or photos of myself with AI tools.
I think before I trust. AI can be wrong. I always double-check important facts and never assume AI is telling the truth.
I'm the creator, not AI. AI helps me — it doesn't replace me. My ideas, my choices, my work. I always give credit when I use AI.
I keep it kind. I don't use AI to make fun of people, create mean content, or do anything I wouldn't do face-to-face.
I talk about it. If something feels weird, confusing, or wrong, I talk to a grown-up. There are no dumb questions about AI.

What Promptlings Teaches About Safety

At Promptlings, safety isn't a separate module tacked onto our curriculum. It's woven into everything we do.

Every class begins with the same foundation: your child is the creator, and AI is the tool. We teach children to protect their privacy instinctively, to question AI outputs critically, and to use AI ethically and responsibly.

Our instructors are trained to address safety topics in age-appropriate ways:

Explorers (ages 8–10) learn privacy rules through simple, memorable guidelines and always work with supervised, curated tools
Builders (ages 11–13) dive deeper into how AI works, why it makes mistakes, and how to evaluate AI-generated content
Creators (ages 14–18) engage with AI ethics, bias, intellectual property, and responsible creation at a level that prepares them for real-world use

We believe the safest child isn't the one who never uses AI — it's the one who understands it well enough to use it wisely.

The Bottom Line

AI tools are here to stay. Your child will use them — in school, in their social life, and eventually in their career. The question isn't whether they'll interact with AI, but how well-prepared they'll be when they do.

The most effective approach combines clear rules (especially around privacy), open conversation, age-appropriate boundaries, and — most importantly — teaching your child to think critically about the tools they use.

You don't need to be an AI expert to raise an AI-literate child. You just need to stay engaged, keep the conversation going, and model the thoughtful, responsible approach you want your child to adopt.

Want your child to learn AI safety and creativity in a structured, expert-led environment? Join the Promptlings waitlist → and give them a head start.