That is a much stronger parenting strategy than simply telling kids not to follow the crowd. Resistance requires an alternative. If we tell a teenager, “Don't let social media define you,” but have never helped them answer who they actually are, we have only removed one identity source without giving them another. Children need enough family history, faith, values, character, language, responsibility, and lived experience that, when culture offers them a template, they have something internal to compare it to.

Much of the conversation about artificial intelligence and children focuses on obvious dangers. We worry about inappropriate content, misinformation, manipulative conversations, privacy, or a chatbot saying something harmful to a vulnerable child. Those concerns matter, but Sherry Turkle's new book, Artificial Intimacy, pushed me toward a different question. What if the greater danger begins before the chatbot says anything obviously wrong? Turkle describes what she calls relational deskilling: as people increasingly turn to machines for companionship, they may lose, or in the case of children, fail to develop, the ability to handle the friction, reciprocity, awkwardness, unpredictability, and genuine complexity that belong to human relationships. That changes the question from “Did the AI hurt my child?” to “What relational muscles did my child never have to use because the AI made companionship easier?”

I asked Dr. Kathy a question that probably sounds simpler than it really is: Is it okay for our kids to feel sad? Our culture often treats sadness like a parenting failure. If a child comes home discouraged, disappointed, lonely, or hurt, we feel pressure to repair the mood before dinner. We offer advice, solve the problem, buy something, distract them, or remind them of everything they should be grateful for because we would much rather see them smiling. Dr. Kathy's answer was refreshingly uncomplicated: yes, sadness is real, and children shouldn't be taught to hide or quickly replace difficult feelings so Mom and Dad can feel better. A friend chooses a different lunch table, a teacher overlooks them, someone says something cruel, or an expectation falls apart, and sadness may be an entirely appropriate response. A caring adult's first responsibility is not necessarily to remove the feeling. Sometimes it is simply to become the kind of person who does not panic when the feeling shows up.