For parents

You don’t need to become an AI expert. You need to know roughly what these tools do, whether your kid is learning or outsourcing, and what to say at the kitchen table on a Tuesday.

Three honest starting points. Is using AI for homework cheating? — the answer is “it depends, and here’s exactly what it depends on,” which is less satisfying than a rule but more useful than one. How to tell if homework was written by AI — including why the detector your school bought is not the answer, and what actually is. Safe AI tools by age — a straight look at what’s appropriate at 9, at 13, at 16.

One thing worth internalising before you read any of it: the useful question isn’t “did you use AI?” It’s “show me how you got there.” A child who used AI to understand can walk you through the reasoning. One who used it to skip the thinking can’t — and that conversation teaches more than any confrontation about a tool.