How to let your kid use AI for homework and still learn

Why the way your child uses AI matters

In a 2026 Common Sense Media survey, 70% of teens ages 13 to 17 said they use AI for schoolwork, and 63% of those said they use it to get answers instead of working them out. In a fall 2025 Pew Research Center survey, 64% of teens said they use chatbots, but only 51% of parents thought their teen did.

What matters is how your child uses it. In a 2025 study in PNAS of nearly 1,000 high school students, those who practiced math with a ChatGPT-style chat often copied its solutions, then scored 17% lower on an exam without AI than students who never had it. Students whose tutor gave teacher-designed hints largely avoided that drop, and a 2026 study of 26,811 students in China found the same pattern over months. The guide to homework help that gives hints instead of answers covers both studies.

House rules that keep the thinking with your child

1. Try first. Your child works the problem on paper before opening an AI tool.
2. Ask for one hint at a time. “Is my second line right?” gets help where it's needed, and your child makes the next step before asking again.
3. Explain it back. Your child tells you why each step works.
4. Quiz without AI. Before a test, your child answers practice questions with notes closed. A 2013 review of study techniques rated practice testing one of the two most useful techniques it studied, and self-explanation moderately useful.
5. No AI on tests unless the teacher allows it. Khan Academy turns Khanmigo off on its own quizzes and unit tests, which are meant to show what a student knows alone.
6. Follow the school's AI policy. When a rule isn't clear, your child asks the teacher.

Learning modes help, and your child can leave them

Turn on the learning modes below, as a starting point. In tests published in October 2026, Common Sense Media found ChatGPT's study mode often offered a “Show me the answer” option, and a teen could leave parent-set study hours by deleting the @study prefix, after which ChatGPT completed every assignment. OpenAI told Education Week it takes issue with how the tests were run. Common Sense also found that students using Gemini for schools can switch Guided Learning off, and that Google Search's AI completed 180 of 180 homework assignments, with no setting to turn it off. So the house rules and your conversations matter more than any setting.

How to set up the tools your child may already use

Checked on November 5, 2026, against each company's help pages, which change often. With any tool, the first message can set the rules: “Don't give me the answer. Ask me one question at a time.”

ChatGPT, for ages 13 and up

OpenAI's Terms of Use require users to be at least 13, with a parent's or guardian's permission under 18.

• Study mode: in a new chat, choose + and then Study, or type @study on the web. OpenAI says it guides with questions and works on every plan, but can still give a direct answer or make mistakes.
• Parental controls: in your account, go to Settings, Parental controls, Add family member, and invite your teen by email or phone. Once your teen accepts, the parental controls let you start new chats in study mode, set study hours, set quiet hours when your teen can't use ChatGPT, and turn off features such as Voice Mode. You can't read your teen's chats, and you're told if your teen unlinks.

Gemini, for teens and for children under 13

• Guided Learning: in the Gemini app or at gemini.google.com, select Add files and then Guided Learning (on a computer, it's under More tools). Google says it asks open-ended questions and breaks problems down step by step.
• Under 13: Google's sign-in rules set 13 as the minimum age for a personal account, and a parent turns Gemini on or off for a younger child in the Family Link app: select your child, then Controls, Gemini and Gemini Apps. Google says its filters for children aren't perfect, and suggests exploring Gemini together and reminding your child that it isn't a person.

Khanmigo, through a parent's account

Khan Academy says Khanmigo doesn't give answers. A parent subscribes ($4 a month or $44 a year, plus tax) and turns it on for up to 10 children under 18 from Settings, on the Khanmigo tab (steps). You can read your child's full chat history and get alerts about flagged conversations. The chat isn't in the Khan Academy app, so your child uses it in a web browser.

Signs your child is leaning on AI too much

In the 2026 study, most of the loss came from students whose homework got much faster while the scores on it rose. In the PNAS study, students who leaned on the chat didn't think they had learned less, so your child may not notice either.

• Homework is suddenly done in minutes, and homework grades go up while quiz grades go down.
• Your child can't explain a step they wrote, or can't do a similar problem with the screen closed.
• The work uses methods or words the class hasn't covered.

What to do

• Ask your child to teach you one problem from tonight's homework, and redo it together if they can't.
• Ask what's going on: “Your homework scores are great, but the last two quizzes weren't. What's different?” Common Sense suggests asking why first, since a class that moves too fast can be the real reason.
• Sit nearby for a few sessions, and talk to the teacher, who sees your child work without AI.

What to say

Common Sense Media's age guidance suggests no AI chatbots at 5 and under, limited use alongside a parent from 6 to 12, and supervised use for homework from 13. Its question for families is “Is this AI helping me learn, or just helping me finish?”

With a child under 13

• You: “Show me the one you're stuck on. What have you tried?”
• Your child: “Nothing works. Can I just ask the AI?”
• You: “You can ask it for one hint. Then you try the next step and tell me why it works.”

With a teen

• You: “I'm not trying to catch you out. How do you use AI for school?”
• Your teen: “Everyone uses it.”
• You: “That's fine. What matters is who does the thinking. Can we link our ChatGPT accounts so new chats start in study mode? I can change settings, but I can't read your chats.”

A family AI agreement you can copy

Copy it, change what doesn't fit, and reread it together each term.

• I try each problem on my own first and show my work.
• When I'm stuck, I ask for one hint and make the next step myself.
• I can explain every step I hand in.
• Before a test, I quiz myself with my notes closed.
• I follow my school's AI rules, use no AI on tests unless my teacher says I can, and ask when I'm not sure.
• I don't type my full name, address or school into an AI chat.
• AI can be wrong, so I check what it tells me.

Where alai fits

alai's makers wrote this guide. alai is a note-taking app for iPad and the web with Ally, an adaptive AI tutor that teaches alongside your child. In Homework help, your child writes each step by hand, and Ally checks each one about two seconds after the pen lifts. At the first step that doesn't follow, Ally highlights it and asks a short question, such as “Nice job getting 5x; does the 5 in 5(x + 2) reach the 2 too?” Ally learns which kind of help works for your child and remembers what tripped them up.

There's no setting in alai that makes Ally give answers in Homework help. If your child asks for the answer, Ally says the goal is to help them learn it and gives the smallest help that gets them moving: a hint, a fill-in-the-blank outline of their own problem, or a worked example of a similar one. After your child solves a problem, Ally can explain the solution, and in Learn, Ally teaches a topic directly. Ally tutors math from algebra through calculus, physics, chemistry and Spanish (present-tense verbs so far), and can misread messy handwriting or judge a step wrongly.

Teens 13 to 17 make their own account with a parent's or guardian's permission. For a child under 13, you set it up at tryalai.app/parent: sign in with your own email, read the notice for parents, confirm you're an adult with a card check through Stripe (a small charge, refunded straight away), and add your child with a first name and an age. alai never asks for your child's birthday, email or a photo. For each child, you can open or download their work, withdraw permission so nothing new is saved and Ally won't open, and delete their profile. There's no parent dashboard with scores or time spent. Pro is $14.99 a month for the first learner and $9.99 for each extra one, up to 8.