Through Time

Children and AI: for parents and teachers

What is known about children and screens, how to handle homework and companion chatbots, and how to teach a child to check and to think.

A course for parents and teachers, with no scaremongering and no promises. You will know what research supports and what is contested, be able to agree on rules with a child, and talk with them about deepfakes and bullying. When a child is struggling, they need a professional, not a course, and this course says when and who.

So far there is only this table of contents. Lessons appear one at a time, and we promise no dates. Feed of new lessons (Atom)

18 lessons, 5 parts

Part 1 How children grow

Before deciding what to do about the machine, it helps to know who you are dealing with at six and at fourteen.

  1. How children develop, in plain words

    What roughly changes with age in language, self-control and friendship, and why age charts describe average children, not yours.

    coming soon

  2. Why peers matter so much to a teenager

    What to expect at this age, and why “the brain isn’t finished yet” explains less than it seems to.

    coming soon

  3. The marshmallow test and growth mindset

    What is left of the marshmallow test after its repeats and of growth mindset after the reviews, and what to take for your own child.

    coming soon

Part 2 Screens

Parents and scientists both argue about this, so each claim is marked as supported, contested or unknown.

  1. Screens: what is supported and what is contested

    The argument between Jonathan Haidt and his critics over whether smartphones are to blame for teenagers’ mental health, and what counts as known.

    coming soon

  2. Very young children and screens

    What WHO advises about screen time before age five, what that rests on, and what matters more than minutes.

    coming soon

  3. Bans: phones in class and social media

    Phones in class and age limits on social media: what can and cannot be said about their effect.

    coming soon

  4. Family rules without a war

    Agreements about sleep, meals and where the phone lives, which the child helps to write and the adults keep too.

    coming soon

Part 3 Learning beside a model

Banning models is hard and allowing everything does harm, and there is now some early data on this.

  1. Homework and a model

    A plain model can raise a child’s score in practice and lower it afterward, and hints in place of answers ease the harm: how to set that up at home.

    coming soon

  2. Teaching a child to check

    How to make checking a child’s habit: what to show at which age and how to go over mistakes together; the moves themselves are in the course on checking.

    coming soon

  3. Teaching thinking when the answer is already there

    First your own attempt, then the model, then a look at the differences: methods for home and class in which the child does the work.

    coming soon

  4. Detectors of generated text

    Why a student should not be accused on a detector’s word alone, especially one writing in a second language.

    coming soon

  5. What rules a school needs

    What is allowed on which assignments, and how to tell students and parents so that the rule is clear to everyone.

    coming soon

Part 4 A chatbot in place of a friend

A companion who always agrees and is always there is especially attractive at the age when people learn how to be friends.

  1. Companion chatbots and children

    What these services are, what draws a teenager to them, how to talk about them with a child, and when it is time to see a professional.

    coming soon

  2. Age rules: COPPA and GDPR

    COPPA’s line at 13, GDPR’s default of 16, which a country may lower to 13, and what a service’s own age rule does and does not mean.

    coming soon

Part 5 Hard conversations

It is better to talk before the first incident, and if it has happened, a child needs an adult who does not start with blame.

  1. Talking about deepfakes

    What a teenager should know beforehand: anyone can be faked, forwarding makes it worse, and there are adults, platforms and police to turn to.

    coming soon

  2. Bullying in a group chat

    How to save the evidence, when to go to the school and the police, and why not to take the phone away from the child being bullied.

    coming soon

  3. When a professional is the right answer

    The signs that a talk at home is not enough: a psychologist, a pediatrician, a crisis line and, in immediate danger, emergency services.

    coming soon

  4. A look ahead: model tutors and talking toys

    What is already being promised, which studies would have to back it up, and what to ask the school and the toy’s maker.

    coming soon