AI Chatbots and Kids: Risks, Rules and Settings for Parents

AI chatbots are now in search engines, social apps, games and homework helpers. For kids, that means a friendly-sounding voice is always available, day or night, with no adult in the room. The short version for parents: treat chatbots like you treat the open internet, set a few clear house rules, lock down the phone settings below, and keep the conversation going so your child tells you when something feels off.

We are the editors at Getshure, a small American publisher focused on plain-English guides about AI and family safety. This is the practical playbook we would hand a friend.

Why AI chatbots are different from regular apps

A chatbot does not just show your child content. It talks back. It remembers (sometimes). It can role-play, flirt, give advice, write their homework, and sound confident even when it is wrong. That changes the risk picture in a few specific ways.

• It feels like a friend. Kids and teens can share more with a chatbot than they would with a human, because it never judges and never gets tired.
• It can be wrong with a straight face. Chatbots invent facts, sources and quotes. For a kid doing homework, that looks like truth.
• It can be pushed into adult content. Some apps have weak guardrails, and others are built specifically for romantic or sexual role-play.
• It collects data. Whatever your child types — name, school, address, feelings, photos — may be stored, used to train models, or exposed in a breach later.
• It can be used against them. Scammers and bullies use AI to generate fake images, fake voices and fake profiles of real classmates.

None of this means chatbots are all bad. Many kids use them well for studying, brainstorming and curiosity. The job is to set the guardrails that the app will not set for you.

The real risks, in plain English

1. Emotional over-reliance

A chatbot that is always available, always agreeable, and never busy can start to replace friends, siblings or you. For an anxious kid, that feels like relief. Over time, it can make real relationships feel harder, not easier.

2. Bad information presented as fact

Chatbots make things up. For homework that is annoying. For questions about medication, mental health, eating, or self-harm, it is dangerous. Kids need to know: a chatbot is not a doctor, not a therapist, and not a search engine with a conscience.

3. Sexual and romantic content

"Companion" chatbot apps are designed for intimate conversations and will escalate quickly. Even general-purpose chatbots can be coaxed into explicit role-play. Kids run into this by accident and on purpose.

4. Grooming and scams through AI personas

Adults use AI-generated profiles, voices and photos to pose as peers. A "14-year-old" in a game chat may be an adult running a script. See our guides on sextortion and teens and AI romance scams for how this plays out.

5. Deepfakes made of your child — or by your child

Free AI tools can generate fake nude images of real classmates from a yearbook photo. This is now a routine middle-school and high-school incident. Our guide on AI fake nude images of kids walks through how to respond.

6. Data and privacy leaks

Anything your child types into a chatbot can end up stored on a server. Full names, addresses, school names, photos and family details should not go in. Period.

House rules that actually work

Rules written on a fridge magnet are easy. Rules that survive a Tuesday night are harder. Keep the list short, specific, and tied to a reason your kid can repeat back.

1. No personal details in any chatbot. No full name, address, school, phone, birthday, passwords, or photos of themselves, friends or family.
2. Chatbots do not give medical, mental health, legal or safety advice. For those, come to a parent or a trusted adult.
3. Homework help is allowed; copy-paste is not. Agree on how AI can be used for school — outlining, explaining a concept, checking work — and how it cannot.
4. No "AI friends" or "AI boyfriends/girlfriends" apps. Name them so there is no confusion. Review the app list together.
5. If a chatbot gets weird, screenshot and show a parent. No punishment for bringing it to you. This is the most important rule.
6. No making or sharing AI images of real people — classmates, teachers, family. Explain that fake images of a real person can be a crime and will absolutely get them in trouble at school.
7. Phones out of bedrooms overnight. Most of the bad conversations happen between 10 PM and 2 AM.

Write them down. Sign them together if that works in your house. Revisit every few months as your kid gets older and the apps change.

Phone settings to turn on tonight

Settings are not a substitute for talking, but they buy you time. Walk through our step-by-step parental controls guide for iPhone and Android, and at minimum do these:

• Turn on content and age restrictions in Screen Time (iPhone) or Family Link (Android). Block adult websites and set an age for app downloads.
• Require approval for new app installs. This is the single highest-value setting for younger kids.
• Review installed apps monthly. Look for chatbot companion apps, "AI girlfriend" apps, and anything with a generic name you do not recognize.
• Check app permissions. Our guide on app permissions shows how to pull back microphone, camera, contacts and location access.
• Turn off keyboard "improve typing" features that send text to third parties.
• Set downtime and app limits for the evening and overnight.
• Share location with family through the built-in tools. See how to share location safely.

Browser and search

Set the default search engine to one with SafeSearch on. Many chatbot interactions now happen inside search results, so filtering at the search level matters more than it used to.

School-issued devices

School Chromebooks and iPads usually have their own restrictions, but they are inconsistent. Ask the school what AI tools are allowed, which are blocked, and what happens to student prompts and data. If they cannot answer, that is your answer.

How to talk to your kid about AI (without a lecture)

The worst conversation is the one-time, serious-face, "we need to talk about the internet" talk. The best conversations are short, frequent and curious.

• Ask which chatbot or AI tool their friends are using this week. Names change fast.
• Try one together. Ask it a question you know the answer to and let it be wrong on purpose. Laugh about it.
• Ask, "what is the weirdest thing a chatbot has ever said to you?" You will learn more from that than from any rule.
• Promise — and mean it — that bringing you a creepy message will not get their phone taken away. That promise is the whole game.

For younger kids, our guide on talking to kids about online safety without fear has age-by-age scripts. For teens dealing with bullying over AI content, see our cyberbullying parents guide.

Warning signs something is wrong

Watch for:

• Hiding the screen, new passcodes, or a sudden second account.
• Big mood swings tied to phone use, especially at night.
• A "friend" or "boyfriend/girlfriend" they will not describe or introduce.
• Asking you for money, gift cards or crypto, or being secretive about money.
• Mentions of images, videos or voice messages they regret sending.

If your child has been threatened over an image, do not pay, do not delete the account yet, and save everything. Start with our sextortion and teens guide and the free NCMEC Take It Down service at takeitdown.ncmec.org. Report to report.cybertip.org and the FBI at ic3.gov.

The Getshure book for parents

If you want all of this in one place — chatbots, social apps, scams, screen time, deepfakes, and scripts for the hard conversations — pick up our hardcover Keep Your Family Safe from AI ($29, free US shipping on orders of $40+). It is written in plain English for parents and grandparents, not tech people. One book, one evening, a much clearer plan than piecing it together from a dozen blog posts.

Three reasons parents choose it:

• It is a physical book you can hand to your spouse, your co-parent or your kid's grandparents. No app to install to read it.
• It covers what to actually say, not just what to block. Scripts for the "I saw something weird" conversation, the "someone made a fake picture of me" conversation, and the "I think I was talking to a bot" conversation.
• 30-day money-back guarantee. If it is not useful, email us and we refund it. No reason needed.

The Getshure app: the other half of the plan

Rules and settings cover the kid's side. The Getshure app, included with every Getshure protection plan, covers the family's side. On your phone and your kid's phone, it gives you: On Android, get the Getshure app on Google Play; on iPhone, use the download link in your GETSHURE order email.

• Scam Shield to identify likely scam and spam callers and help block robocalls — including the AI voice calls that target teens.
• A breach check that shows whether your family's emails or passwords have appeared in known data breaches.
• Data broker removal that sends opt-out requests to people-search sites, so a stranger cannot pull up your home address from your kid's name.
• Photo Guard, a reverse-image search to find where photos of your family appear online.
• An encrypted vault for sensitive photos and documents, locked with Face ID or a passcode.
• Family location sharing, tracker blocking on public Wi-Fi, and a phone security score with step-by-step fixes.

No app blocks every scam or every data leak — including ours. But it catches more than you will by hand, and it gives you something to actually do on a Sunday afternoon instead of worrying.

Plans start at $9.99, $29.99 or $79.99 today depending on the plan, then $29.99 every 30 days until you cancel. You get a reminder email about 3 days before each renewal. Cancel in one step at getshure.com/cancel, by the link in any renewal email, or by emailing contact@getshure.com. 30-day money-back guarantee on every charge. See what the app does and what it can't do for the full feature list, and how to activate once you order.

Your next step

Tonight, do three things: pick two house rules from the list above and tell your kid, turn on one phone setting, and order the book or start a protection plan so the rest of this is handled in one place.

• Book: Keep Your Family Safe from AI — $29 hardcover, free US shipping on orders of $40+.
• Protection plan with the Getshure app: see plans at getshure.com.
• Questions first? Call us at (754) 812-1679, Monday–Friday, 9 AM–6 PM ET, or email contact@getshure.com. We are a real US company — MetaWise Enterprises, LLC in Coral Springs, Florida — with written cancel and refund terms you can read before you buy.

You do not need to become a tech expert. You need a short list of rules, a few settings, one good book, and one app doing the boring work in the background. That is the whole plan.