Can AI Solve Our Hardest Parenting Dilemmas? I Put It To The Test.

Most parents don’t get very far into their new job before they encounter a situation that has them flummoxed. It could be infant sleep issues, toddler tantrums or screen time negotiations, but, inevitably, every parent will have the thought, “Where do I go from here?”

Some situations demand immediate action. You pick the shrieking toddler up in the middle of the parking lot for his own safety. Other times, you have a few minutes to mull over your response, perhaps consulting with a co-parent. What, for example, are the appropriate consequences for a child refusing to do her chores? Then there are the big decisions, like when to get your child a cell phone, that you may spend months or years worrying over.

Yet there’s a widespread cultural belief that good parenting (and good mothering, in particular) is mostly a matter of instinct, that if we could just tune in to our internal wisdom, all our doubts would resolve themselves.

This makes it difficult for parents to admit when they are uncertain or may have made a mistake. It can also prevent parents from reaching out for help if they feel shame about needing it.

At the same time, the proliferation of parenting “experts” with varying types of credentials offering books, courses and podcasts is proof that many parents are hungry for advice. When we just don’t know how to proceed, we would very much like a calm, measured voice to tell us which way to turn.

Becky Kennedy, aka Dr. Becky, a psychologist who has been called “the parenting whisperer” for millennials and who currently has almost 3 million followers on Instagram, would likely top many parents’ lists of experts they wish they could have on speed dial.

Kennedy, who is both warm and unflappable, advocates for what she calls “sturdy parenting,” which conjures an image of a parent as ballast for a ship navigating choppy water.

Study parenting, she said, is “the ability to effectively embody your authority while staying connected and validating and empathizing with our kids’ feelings.”

A sturdy parent is not an authoritarian parent who puts an end to questioning with a sharp “Because I said so!” They are also not a permissive parent who empathizes with a child’s feelings and subsequently complies with all of a child’s demands. A study parent manages — without collapsing or losing their cool — to both acknowledge (although not necessarily validate) their child’s feelings and hold to the boundary they have set.

Holding boundaries when it comes to kids’ behavior actually helps kids feel safe. They don’t truly want parents to bend to every one of their demands, Kennedy said. “That feels very dangerous to them, because they essentially feel like they’re on a plane without a pilot,” she added. Kids want to know that a competent leader is in charge and that you will get them safely to where they need to go.

Of course, there’s no official training course or credentialing body for parents. Sometimes you manage to land the plane safely through blind guessing. Other times, you crash. Either experience, understandably, sends many frightened parents looking for expert guidance. We want an experienced pilot to show us how this whole thing is done.

Kennedy has been reaching her followers through social media, her website, books and podcast, and she has just launched a new app using AI technology that can give parents answers to their queries in real time.

“I realized with AI, I can now basically show up for parents around the globe in a way that’s going to feel exactly like they’re texting with me or like I’m sitting right next to them,” Kennedy told HuffPost.

Kennedy is not the first parenting expert to roll out an AI tool. Economist and author Emily Oster has Dewey, a “personal librarian” who will sort through all the content on her website to find the answer to questions such as, “Can I eat sushi while I’m pregnant?” A quick perusal of the app store surfaces other options such as AI Parenting Coach and Granny: AI Parenting Coach, which are free to download but feature in-app purchases.

When you sign up for Kennedy’s The Good Inside app, which costs $279 annually or $84 for a three-month membership, you’re first led through a series of questions about what kind of help you’re looking for and what challenges you’re facing. You then enter your children’s names (or pseudonyms) and birthdates, and the app generates a “deck” that you can spend a few minutes swiping through every day in order to hone your parenting skills, sort of like a language-learning app that promises to teach you through modest amounts of daily practice.

You also get access to the chatbot. To test it out, I mined the depths of my imagination for a few completely random sample behaviors from children who exist only in the hypothetical.

Minus the trademark warmth in her voice, the chatbot does indeed sound believably like Dr. Becky. Much as she advises parents to do, the virtual Dr. Becky begins each of her responses by empathizing with my frustration.

When I type in, “My toddler is sitting on the floor of the subway station. She has taken off her socks and shoes and thrown them and is saying, ‘I not going!’ How do I get her back in her stroller?” the app responds with reassurance: “Gosh, that sounds so tough — and you’re definitely not alone in facing these toddler meltdowns. Toddlers are known for their strong-willed nature, especially during transitions!”

The chatbot then suggests that I acknowledge my child’s feelings (“I see you’re really upset and don’t want to go”) and then try giving her a controlled choice (“Would you like to put your shoes on yourself, or should I help you?”) or try making a game of it (“Let’s pretend we’re racing to get your shoes on and hop into the stroller like a kangaroo!”) It concludes with a gentle reminder (“Remember, it’s all about staying calm and showing empathy while guiding her back to the task”) and ends with a little confidence-boosting (“You’re doing an amazing job navigating these tricky moments!”) to hit all the notes of a classic Dr. Becky response.

Notably, the chatbot does not suggest that I crouch down next to my child, hanging my head in shame and muttering, “Oh my God, this is so humiliating,” which might or might not be what an actual human mother would have done in this situation.

I then tried entering the same query into ChatGPT. It delivers a brief nod of sympathy (“Getting your toddler back in the stroller during a meltdown can be tricky”) along with a numbered list of suggestions that aren’t substantially different from the Dr. Becky chatbot: “1. Stay Calm and Use Humor … 2. Offer a Choice … 3. Distraction.” Chat GPT also suggeststhat I may need to use “Positive Reinforcement” with a line such as, “Once you’re back in the stroller, we can go see/do [something fun],” stopping short of using the words “bribe” or “cookie.” Its final bullet point is: “Physical Assistance: If all else fails, you may need to calmly and gently place them back in the stroller, while explaining what’s happening.” I am reminded to “stay patient” as I do this, which is not exactly what the woman crouched on the floor of the subway station wants to hear. ChatGPT is apparently unconcerned with the issue of the socks and shoes.

I asked Brooklyn-based psychologist Nanika Coor if she had any experience with a client using AI for a parenting issue.

She recalled how one mother, in a state of desperation as the clock neared midnight, asked ChatGPT how to get her toddler to go to sleep. “I actually thought that chatGPT gave a pretty reasonable response,” Coor said. But she “noticed that the answer didn’t address the nuances, like the nature of the parent-child dynamic or the parent’s mental and emotional state — which I knew played a role.”

One big advantage of a chatbot app is its 24/7 availability. It’s there with you at any hour, in any location. Coor thinks it’s probably as good as a regular search engine when it comes to run-of-the-mill issues.In Dr. Becky’s app, it’s also easy to find situation-specific scripts, even without using the chatbot feature.

But if your child has multiple diagnoses or you’re dealing with something complex, an app may be less useful as a resource.

“It’s important to take any AI-generated advice with a grain of salt. The information could be too generic, culturally inappropriate, outdated or even harmful,” said Coor, adding that it wouldn’t be unreasonable for a parent to have data privacy concerns when entering personal information into an app.

Coor also pointed out that, while AI can cull information from the whole internet, it doesn’t have access to a parent’s history, which has a huge impact on their parenting — and their mental health.

“Oftentimes the parent’s own background with childhood adversity or trauma results in hyperarousal or emotional flashbacks triggered by the relational dynamics with their child or their child’s unwanted behaviors,” Coor said. In these situations, a parent would need individual therapy to learn to recognize their unique triggers and respond in an intentional way rather than a reactive one.

If you’re looking for a few helpful suggestions and a pep talk, AI may be able to do the trick — particularly a chatbot specifically geared toward parents, like Dr. Becky’s. For insight into your particular family dynamics, however, you’ll have to look inside yourself.