13 Aug Would you let AI help raise your kids? How parents are already using it
From meal planning and homework help to sleep problems and tantrums, artificial intelligence is becoming another place parents can turn for answers. But when is it genuinely useful, and when should parents look elsewhere?
It’s 2am, your baby won’t sleep and you’ve already read everything Google has to offer. Or maybe your eight-year-old needs fractions explained a different way, you need five dinners from whatever’s left in the fridge, or you’re trying to work out how to talk to your teenager after a friendship blow-up.
Increasingly, there’s another option: ask AI.
Tools such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, for example, can produce an answer in seconds, while some specialist parenting services are beginning to build AI into products covering sleep, feeding, behaviour and child development.
So, is AI starting to help raise our children? Maybe, in a small way. But it’s worth being careful not to get ahead of the evidence.
What are parents using AI for?
One of the clearest recent snapshots comes from the United States.
A 2026 survey conducted for Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago asked 1,004 US parents with children aged 17 and under about their use of AI. It found 81 per cent had used AI for a parenting task.
Common uses included health or medical information, meal planning and grocery lists, behaviour advice, homework support and ideas for activities or crafts. Parents also said AI was saving them time and reducing some of the mental load of family life.
Those figures are American, however, and shouldn’t be taken to mean four in five Australian parents are doing the same thing.
Australian data is still surprisingly hard to come by. The Parenting Research Centre’s large Parenting Today national survey has looked at parents’ use of digital sources, including AI chatbots and parenting apps, but the Centre told CHILDmags its Digital Parenting data has not yet been analysed.
So, for now, it’s too early to say how widespread the use of AI parenting advice is in Australian households.
AI is moving into parenting apps too
Parents don’t have to open a general chatbot to come across AI.
Baby and parenting apps have long tracked feeds, nappies, sleep and developmental milestones, and some are now adding conversational AI.
Huckleberry, a popular baby app mainly for parents with kids 0-5 year for example, offers an AI chat feature called Berry. The company says it can use information already recorded in the app, including a child’s age and recent sleep and feeding logs, to answer questions and offer suggestions.
Other parenting and child-development apps provide increasingly personalised recommendations, activities and milestone information.
But it’s worth remembering that “personalised”, “smart” or algorithm-driven does not automatically mean an app uses generative AI. Unless a company makes that clear, it’s better not to assume every modern parenting app is an “AI parenting app”.
Where AI can be genuinely handy
There are plenty of low-risk jobs where an AI assistant can simply make family life easier.
Parents might use it to:
- create meals using ingredients already in the kitchen
- suggest indoor activities for a rainy afternoon
- turn a spelling list into a game
- explain a maths problem in several different ways
- draft questions for a parent-teacher meeting
- suggest age-appropriate books or activities
- make a packing list for camp or a family holiday.
Used this way, AI is less a substitute parent and more a fast brainstorming and organising tool.
It can take care of some of the searching, planning and organising that eats into parents’ time without handing over important parenting decisions.
But parenting advice is different
AI can sound extremely confident even when an answer is incomplete, inappropriate or simply wrong.
That matters much more once a question moves from “What can I cook with chicken and rice?” to “Should I be worried about my child’s symptoms?”
Even the US parents surveyed by Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital showed some hesitation. Discipline, health information and emotional guidance were among the areas where parents were least comfortable relying on AI.
A useful rule of thumb is to think about the consequences of getting the answer wrong.
Ideas for a birthday treasure hunt? AI can be useful.
Questions about medication, developmental delays, serious behaviour concerns or a child’s mental health deserve advice from an appropriately qualified professional.
Don’t forget what you’re telling it
There’s another issue parents can easily overlook: privacy.
A detailed question about a child might include their age, health, behaviour, diagnosis, school situation or family circumstances — all typed into a chat window.
Australia’s Office of the Australian Information Commissioner has warned that generative AI can raise significant privacy issues because these systems may involve large amounts of personal information.
Before entering detailed information about a child, parents should consider whether all those details are really necessary and check the privacy settings and policies of the service they are using.
Names, addresses, school details, medical records and other identifying information are best left out of casual AI conversations where possible.
Meanwhile, the kids are using AI too
Some of the most useful Australian evidence isn’t about parents at all, but their children.
Research released by Australia’s eSafety Commissioner in August 2026 surveyed 1,950 children aged 10 to 17 and found 78 per cent had used an AI assistant, with ChatGPT by far the most commonly reported.
Among children who had used AI assistants or companions, 20 per cent used them daily or more often.
Most used AI for practical purposes such as learning, information or writing, but just over half of AI-assistant users had also used the technology for at least one personal or social reason.
Around one in three children who had used an AI assistant or companion said they had shared personal or potentially sensitive information with it.
Researchers at Australia’s ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child are also studying how children and families interact with generative AI at home.
That work is still underway, so it cannot yet tell us how Australian parents themselves are using AI. The Centre has also said much more research is needed as AI toys, companions, chatbots and devices become more common in children’s lives.
So, would you let AI help raise your child?
Parents have always looked for help — from grandparents, books, health professionals, teachers, parenting forums and, more recently, Google and social media.
AI has now joined that list of places parents may turn for information and ideas, although it isn’t an equal substitute for all of them.
For everyday organising, brainstorming and low-risk tasks, it can be quick and useful.
For decisions involving a child’s health, safety, development or emotional wellbeing, human judgement and qualified advice still matter more.
For Australian families, there is another important point: the technology is moving faster than the research.
We know Australian children are already using AI extensively, and parenting apps are beginning to build it into their services. What we don’t yet have is strong Australian evidence showing how many parents are using AI for parenting advice, how often they use it, or whether it is changing the decisions they make.
For now, AI may be best thought of as another tool in the parenting toolbox — useful for some jobs, but definitely not the one you hand everything over to.
