16 MARCH 2026 www.goodnewsfl.org Good News • South Florida Edition PARENTING Technology seems to be moving so fast that it is hard for us to keep up. It can make your head spin, chasing how to appropriately parent through it. We can’t ignore it, even though it does feel good to try to keep your household in a bubble. Babies born in 2026 will be known as generation Beta. Where Gen Z and beyond are known as tech and internet natives, Betas will be known as AI natives. This means that they will not have known a time without AI. Parenting Generation Beta This presents parents with another opportunity to prepare our children for the future. We can begin to teach and train our children on how to appropriately utilize this tool. That is how we should look at it, a tool in our tool box. Artificial Intelligence can be already found in many areas of our children’s world. It’s in their homework help, their social media feeds, their video games, their music playlists, and increasingly, their classrooms. For many parents, AI feels overwhelming, confusing or even threatening. You might be wondering: • Is this safe for my child? • Is this making them lazy? • How do I protect them without them falling behind? Here’s the good news: you don’t need to understand how AI works at a technical level to guide your kids wisely. You do need to have a healthy perspective and help your children create boundaries around it. Teaching discernment At its core, AI is software that recognizes patterns and generates responses based on massive amounts of data. Obviously, AI doesn’t process truth, context or morality the way God made our brains to. AI predicts likely answers, mimics human language and learns from data… not wisdom. It cannot replace human judgement, understanding right and wrong or care about consequences. This distinction matters. When kids treat AI as an authority instead of a tool, problems arise. Establishing guidelines Here are some boundaries we can help our children place around the use of AI. First, we must make sure that our kids aren’t being over reliant or using AI as a short cut for learning. AI can be a useful brainstorming tool but not a brain replacement. Second, we need to help our children understand that AI can be incorrect, all while sounding very confident. Just like a child learns to research from appropriate sources, they need to double check AI information and ask, “How do we know this is true?” Avoiding artificial companionship Some kids have started turning to AI for companionship or validation. Parents need to watch for private AI conversations and monitor how often AI is being used. We need to help our kids with the understanding that just like social media can be a crutch for relationships, we need to make sure to be focusing on real human connection. We can do this by modeling putting our phones down and having phone free time in our homes. Here are some examples of healthy AI boundaries; AI can help brainstorm, but your words are your own. Meaning, you don’t submit AI written work. No sharing personal or family information on AI platforms. Remember that homework requires learning and understanding, not just correct answers. AI, like computers and other devices, doesn’t happen in bedrooms. As parents we have the amazing privilege of stewarding these gifts that God has given us, our children. As the world around us changes we are given more tools at our disposal but also a great responsibility to train our children to honor God in using these tools. Visit parentingonpurpose.org for more advice from Dr. Bob Barnes and Torrey Roberts. - Dr. Bob Barnes and Torrey Roberts - Sheridan House Family Ministries Raising Wise Kids in an AI World
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