Dear Parents: ChatGPT Won’t Ruin Your Kid, But Ignoring It Might
The Glow of the Screen
Let me set the scene. Your kid is staring at a glowing screen, fingers flying. You peek over. They’re not texting, not scrolling TikTok. They’re typing: “Write me a five paragraph essay on the Treaty of Versailles.”
Pause. Breathe.
Now if you’re like me, grew up speaking Russian at home, maybe yelled at for not wearing a hat in April, maybe had a babushka who thought B+ was basically a failing grade, your first instinct is panic. “They’re cheating. This is not how we were raised. We suffered.”
But before you start throwing slippers and invoking the Holy Ghost of Soviet discipline, let’s talk.
Because I’ve been thinking a lot about this weird place we’re in, where AI is helping our kids with school, but it’s also stealing something from them. Or maybe from us.
We Carried the Struggle
We didn’t have shortcuts. We didn’t have YouTube explainers or AI tutors. If you didn’t understand something, you had to suffer. You walked to the library in winter with wet socks. You borrowed a book that smelled like an attic and hoped the chapter you needed wasn’t already torn out. And if it was? Too bad. That’s life.
Struggle was part of the education. You earned every answer.
When I Was a Kid
When I was a kid, school was not easy. News flash. I’m dyslexic. Had a really hard time reading stuff and relied so much on paying attention in class and remembering what was discussed out loud. I did way better when we had conversations, when the classroom was alive, not just a silent chalkboard marathon.
But when the teacher just wrote on the board, word after word, with no explanation? You sat there trying to copy as fast as you could into that little competition book buried under crushed crackers and last week’s permission slip in your overstuffed book bag. You’re sweating, not because you’re learning, but because you’re trying to survive the period without falling behind.
That wasn’t education. That was endurance training.
Tool or Crutch?
So part of me gets it. Tools like ChatGPT? They help kids like me. The ones who think in colors instead of outlines, who learn by listening, by laughing, by questioning. It levels the playing field a little.
But the other part of me, maybe the babushka in me, is nervous. Because if everything is too easy, what are they actually learning? Are they thinking for themselves? Are they building grit?
ChatGPT is like the smetana container in your mom’s fridge. Could be borscht. Could be screws. Depends who’s using it.
If your kid just copies the answer and hits submit, that’s not help. That’s someone else lifting weights for you at the gym, and then wondering why your arms still look like soft pierogi.
Start the Conversation
What do you do as a parent? You don’t scream. You don’t ban it. You sit down. You say, “Let’s look at it together.” Let your kid show you what they’re asking. Ask them what they think about the answer. Make it a conversation, not a shortcut.
And if you’re the kid reading this? Show your parents. Show your teachers. Let them see that you’re not trying to cheat, you’re trying to figure out how to learn better.
A Letter My Mom Needed to Write
I’ll give you an example. My mom wanted to write a letter of recommendation for a friend. She sat down and typed it up, classic immigrant mom style. Big heart, dramatic phrases, missing a few commas. I said, “Let me show you something.” I pasted it into ChatGPT. We cleaned up the grammar, formatted it right, kept all the emotion.
She looked at the screen like I just turned water into seltzer.
She didn’t say much, just “Wow. Thank you. That was so easy.”
That moment was magic. Because it showed me this tool isn’t just for kids. It’s not just a way to do less. It can also help people do more with what they already have.
Clown Credentials
Look, I’m no professional at anything except being a clown and making fun of how someone talked or walked when I was younger. But now? I’m good at telling a story. With mess, with heart, with leftover sarcasm and a little bit of paprika.
So maybe you talk to your kid this week. Or maybe you talk to your parents. Doesn’t matter who starts it. Just talk about how to use this thing. Talk about what it means to learn today.
Because life’s not multiple choice. And thinking out loud is still allowed.
xo
Garik