It’s 7:40 on a Tuesday. Dinner is half eaten, a worksheet is due tomorrow, and your kid has just discovered that a chatbot can write the paragraph in eleven seconds. You have about four seconds to decide what kind of parent you are about this.
Some new data makes the decision a bit easier.
The Economist (link is Paywalled) recently covered a study by David Stromberg of Stockholm University and Victor Lei and Wu Yanhui of the University of Hong Kong.
They tracked 27,000 pupils aged 12 to 18 in China.
Around 80% of them used AI tools such as Doubao and DeepSeek. The other 20% didn’t, which gave the researchers a comparison group.
After six months, the AI users’ homework scores were up 18%, and each assignment took about 45 minutes instead of 64. Then exam season arrived. Those same kids scored 20% lower than their classmates who hadn’t used AI.
Homework is where you practise.
The exam is where you find out what actually stuck. If the chatbot does the practising, your kid collects the grade and skips the learning. It’s a bit like sending a friend to the gym on your behalf and then wondering why you can’t lift anything on moving day.
The Economist’s data team called the answer a classic Yes/No. AI can make learning more productive, but mostly for students who use it thoughtfully.
Two honest caveats. This is one study, and these were teenagers in China, not your six-year-old at the kitchen table. Still, the pattern will ring true for anyone who ever copied a friend’s answers the night before a deadline.
Banning it isn’t a plan either.
Your kids will meet AI at school and at friends’ houses long before they need it for a job. I’d treat it like learning to ride a bike: helmet, quiet street, a hand on the seat, and a bit more freedom each month.
A few house rules that fit on a fridge
Brain first.
Your kid takes a swing at the problem before the app opens, even a messy one. Ten minutes of being stuck feels like wasted time, but it’s the part that sticks.
Ask it to quiz, not to answer.
Ask me questions about fractions, one at a time, and wait for my answer. Same tool, opposite effect. One version does the work for them. The other makes them do it.
Explain it back.
When the laptop closes, your kid tells you in their own words what they just learned. You don’t need to know the subject. Honestly, it’s better if you don’t, because your confusion forces them to explain properly. If they can’t, it didn’t land, and you’ve found that out on a Tuesday instead of in an exam hall.
Keep a few machine-free zones.
Reading aloud, handwriting, drawing, being bored in the car. Also first drafts of anything. A first draft is where kids find out what they think.
Run your own mini exam.
The study’s lesson is the gap between homework and test day, so close that gap at home. A Friday no-screens quiz, five questions, snacks involved. Low stakes, high information.
The grown-up bits
A few things sit on your side of the table. Keep your child’s full name, school and photos out of chatbots. Most of these services set minimum ages, often 13 or older, so read the terms before handing over a login, and keep younger kids on a shared screen in a shared room.
Tell your kids early that AI is sometimes confidently wrong. Turn it into a game: who can catch the bot in a mistake first? Kids love that, and it teaches the skill that matters most, which is not believing something just because it sounds sure of itself.
And let them watch you double-check an answer now and then. They’ll copy what you do long before they copy what you say.
Tonight, before the app opens, ask your kid what they think the answer is. Then watch what happens.