Ease some of the burden of planning a party and enlist the help of artificial intelligence.
"Is my child hitting their developmental milestones?" "What should I do if my child has a fever?" "How do I handle toddler tantrums?"
"Am I good parent?"
These are some of the top questions parents ask ChatGPT, according to the artificial intelligence tool by OpenAI.
Research suggests more parents are increasingly relying on artificial intelligence, or AI, for a wide range of parenting queries, regarding health, education and behavior, among other topics.
A Sept. 2024 study showed parents can't distinguish the difference between answers written by a medical expert or ChatGPT when asking health care questions, according to the report published in the Journal of Pediatric Psychology. Researchers found parents tended to believe ChatGPT was more trustworthy, accurate and reliable when its answers differed from what was written by the experts.
While AI can be great for some of the time-consuming tasks that come with modern parenting, Dr. Michael Glazier, chief medical officer of Bluebird Kids Health in Broward County, Florida, said that parents should always use AI with a "critical eye."
"It's a tool and it's incredible and it's getting more pervasive," he said. "But don't let it take the place of critical thinking... There's a lot of benefit for us as parents to think things through and consult experts versus just plugging it into a computer."
Modern parenting has become more demanding as parents take on birthday parties, school functions, projects, extracurriculars and other responsibilities. This is where AI can shine, experts said.
Parents can use the technology to create birthday invitations, chore schedules, new dinner recipes, calendars, to-do lists, arts and crafts, original bedtime stories, and vacation itineraries, among other everyday tasks.
"It is tremendously helpful in all those things because the stakes aren't as high if it makes a mistake," Glazier said.
Parents can also use AI as a starting point for medical information, he said. The technology pulls research from sources, such as medical journals and organizations, that parents may struggle to find on their own.
But he urges parents to consult a health expert on what they've found and to avoid acting on medical advice generated by AI.
"Sometimes parents come in and they say, 'I did all my research and now I'm not sure what to do, can you help me?'" Glazier said. "That's not a bad place to be because we can go over what they found."
When it comes to medical advice, AI and parenting experts Klaudia and Grant McDonald said parents should also be wary of the sensitive medical information they're inputting into AI chats. The couple developed a mobile application called Bobo that uses AI to generate verified information on childhood health and development for parents.
"A lot of time parents are dumping personal, sensitive information into ChatGPT without giving thought to the sensitive information they're giving away to a large company," Grant said. With their mobile app, "your data is not leaving our platform."
Parents should also be mindful of how they write a question because AI can become an "echo chamber," Klaudia said. Leading questions can generate answers that the technology thinks you want but might not be entirely accurate.
"It's easy to lead AI with how you're phrasing" the question, Klaudia said. "You need to be specific and objective in how you write your prompt."
