How to Help Your Teen Use ChatGPT as a Tool—Not a Shortcut
By Iris Peña
In this day and age, AI is a growing source that surrounds us. ChatGPT is an AI tool that has become popular among teens, especially as a way to help them with schoolwork. Although AI is a helpful tool that students can use, many teens are growing too dependent on it and are using it for more than just support. According to a Pew Research Centre study, 26 percent of teens 13 to 17 use AI to help with their assignments. It’s important to understand the effects of AI on students, how your teen is using it, and how to teach them to not to rely on it completely
Know the risks of AI dependency
AI dependency can negatively affect your teen’s learning. They can ask ChatGPT to solve a problem and get the answer in a blink of an eye without doing the work for themselves. This takes away from the learning process. In fact, research from 2024 by KPMG found that over two thirds (67 percent) of students confessed they’re not learning as much and they also said they claim generative AI as their own work. This can be particularly harmful. Not only is it an ethical dilemma, but it can also impact their grades.
AI is not always as reliable as teens may think. In June 2025, CTV News reported that Ed McHugh, a business and marketing professor at Dalhousie University, noticed many students had cheated on an assignment. He could tell that AI did the work for them. In the assignment, the students had to watch a video regarding a man named Adam Smith. The answer from many students was not about the right Adam Smith because there was also an economist from the 18th century named Adam Smith. This indicates how AI can provide inaccurate or misleading information when not used properly.
Understand your teen’s needs
In order to help your teen manage their AI use, you need to understand what they primarily use it for. A 2023 study by edtech company RM Technology found that students use AI to do their physics work, science tests, draft and write essays, solve numerical problems, make art, etc. Talk to your teen about their usage and try to discover together if they might be overly dependent on it. If necessary, subtly monitor their homework to see if it reflects their usual voice or effort. Talk to your teen about AI boundaries. Show them how they can use ChatGPT as a tool for brainstorming, but this should only aid them to generate their own ideas.
Share this with your teen! A fun guide by John Spencer on how to prevent AI from doing all the thinking.
Teach responsible AI use
Teaching your teen that ChatGPT is not always reliable is one of the most important lessons. If they do ask ChatGPT a question, tell them to always fact check the answer. They should do their own separate research to verify the answer. Using the same answer word-for-word by ChatGPT can increase the risk of plagiarism. Explain that teachers can often tell when AI has been used and that the consequences, such as grade deductions or assignment failure – aren’t worth it.
If your teen is in high school, explain the severe consequences they could face if they train themselves to solely depend on AI and carry it out in post-secondary school. Colleges and universities often have strict academic policies, and being caught using AI improperly could lead to failed courses or even expulsion.
Even if students aren’t plagiarizing, there are real benefits to doing the work yourself. Some students may like the convenience of asking AI to generate study notes, but that might not help their memory in the long run. A study from the University of Tokyo indicates that taking digital notes does not have the same effect as handwritten notes. Handwritten notes enable learning and memorization due to several physical cues (shapes of letters, location of words, etc). The study found that people’s brains retain these details that can act as triggers to acquire that information from memory. Although writing notes by hand may seem “old school” to teens, explain all of the benefits. Your teen will thank you for that A+ later on!