If parenting used to feel like herding cats, welcome to the upgrade. Now you’re herding caffeinated cats while an invisible algorithm whispers in their ears and suggests alternative life choices based on what they clicked at breakfast. The modern parent isn’t just raising children, they’re raising humans in a world quietly shaped, curated and nudged by artificial intelligence. And if you’re feeling slightly outgunned, well frankly, you should. The machines aren’t coming… They’ve already moved in, taken your Wi-Fi password and started influencing your offspring one suggested video reel at a time.

But before we move on, I’d like to add that AI isn’t the proverbial villain, lurking behind the curtains, stroking a digital moustache. It’s a tool, albeit a powerful one. And as the old adage goes: With great power comes great responsibility. Something that, sadly, most adults, let alone children, have yet to develop. Your job isn’t to wage war against AI. Your job is far harder; You’re meant to raise humans who don’t crumble just because a machine has opinions.

And trust me, machines do have opinions… They’re just very polite about it.

This article isn’t meant to scare you senseless or convince you to throw every device with a Wi-Fi signal into the nearest river. That’s less “modern parenting” and more “evidence tampering.” What I am here to do is walk you through what identity looks like in a world that’s part-human, part-machine, and entirely too comfortable suggesting songs, careers and personality traits to your children.

Let’s start at the heart of it.

THE IDENTITY HIJACK

Humans have always been prone to influence. Be it by culture, parents, peers, religion, or whatever strange fashion choices were considered “acceptable” in their generation. It used to be that “It takes a village to raise a child.”, but kids today aren’t formed by a village. They’re formed by a personalised algorithm that knows them better than their own grandparents do. AI doesn’t just influence their decisions. It literally predicts them, nudges them, and, when left unchecked, it systematically shapes them.

When your teen suddenly decides they’re no longer into sport activities but are now deeply passionate about candle-making and Norse mythology, that’s not puberty. That’s TikTok deciding to see what happens if it nudges them toward Viking-loving aromatherapy.

The question for parents is; How do you help your kids build an identity that isn’t leased from the influence of the algorithm?

THE DIGITAL MIRROR CRISIS

Identity used to grow from personal experience. You would try things, failed at things, embarrassed yourself publicly, learn, grow, and develop. These days kids don’t learn through experience. They learn through comparison, mostly against filtered images of people who don’t actually exist, and curated by systems designed to maximise attention rather than health and sanity.

Contrary to popular opinion, AI filters don’t enhance reality… They replace it. They don’t show your teen what they look like. They show your teen what they could look like if they had no pores, flawless cheekbones and the bone structure of an elven warlord. AI is suggesting that a ‘perfect person’ should be less person and more artificial.

Children used to ask, “Who am I?”
Now they ask, “Who am I compared to that?”

This is where your role kicks in. And NO, it doesn’t involve banning phones or giving lectures on dopamine addiction. It involves something far more meaningful: anchoring your child’s identity to something sturdier than a temporary digital applause.

THE FOUR ANCHORS OF HUMAN IDENTITY

AI directly influences behaviour. Unfortunately, in our digital age, that’s unavoidable. But influence is only dangerous when there’s no internal identity structure. Identity is something that is built, slowly, not instantly downloaded. So, if you want your children to stay human in a machine-shaped world, you need to help them develop four crucial anchors.

1. Self-Inquiry (The ability to question themselves)

Children must learn to ask:
“Do I want this because it matters to me, or because it was suggested to me?”

Teens will roll their eyes. That’s fine, since they tend to roll their eyes at everything, right? But cultivating the habit matters. When kids practice self-inquiry, they stop being puppets of digital suggestion and start becoming authors of their own thinking.

2. Critical Filters (The ability to question information)

AI will throw endless content at them, much of it mediocre, some of it ridiculous, and all of it designed to keep them scrolling until their thumbs beg for a time-out. Your mission, should you choose to accept it: teach them to interrogate content the way you interrogate suspiciously quiet toddlers.

“Who said this?”
“Why did they say it?”
“What’s in it for them?”
“What’s in it for me if I comply?”

Even a mildly well-trained critical thinker is harder for algorithms to manipulate.

3. Real Life Skills (The antidote to digital identity)

Children build real identity through real-world competence. Not digital badges, not virtual achievements, not a streak on Snapchat. Identity grows from the gritty, unfiltered effort of doing things, and physically experiencing the effort it takes to do so.

Sports, arts, music, reading, building something, breaking something AND then fixing it. Anything grounded in reality helps them become someone rather than perform as someone.

4. Human Bonds (The one thing AI can’t replace)

AI can simulate interest, kindness and conversation. One thing it can’t do is provide connection. If your child’s self-worth hinges on likes, comments, followers or AI companions, then you’ve got a problem. If it hinges on relationships with real people, they’re safe.

Your role isn’t to outsmart the machines.
It’s to make sure the machines aren’t the most meaningful relationship in your child’s life.

THE NEW “IMAGINARY FRIEND”

I’d like to take a moment and shatter a modern lie: Kids aren’t naturally good at technology.
They’re good at using technology. BIG DIFFERENCE!

Technology isn’t the problem… Passivity is. The real danger isn’t AI influencing your child, it’s your child never learning to influence themselves. When teens say things like, “The algorithm made me watch it…” you should feel a small part of your soul leave your body.

Teach them to curate their own feeds, delete apps that drain them, use AI as a tool rather than a babysitter, create more than they consume, choose intentionally instead of reacting automatically

These aren’t technical skills folks, they’re identity skills.

When we were young, imaginary friends were harmless, and we eventually outgrew them. They didn’t talk back, and they certainly didn’t advise you on your relationship problems or recommend existentialist literature.

Now AI companions fill the gap left by lonely afternoons, busy parents and socially anxious teens. For some kids, AI friends feel safer than human ones because they never judge, never argue and never say anything too unpredictable.

The danger in this though, is you cannot build identity by interacting only with something that bends to your will. As humans, we build identity through friction, tension, misunderstanding and connection. In other words, through actual interaction with other people.

If your child is replacing human connection with machine interactions, you need to intervene. Not with panic, but with presence.

You are no longer just a parent; you are a curator of influence. AI will shape your child one way or another. Your job is to counterbalance it with something stronger.

Here’s a checklist to incorporate and develop with your kids daily:

• Conversation
• Values
• Curiosity
• Boundaries
• Humour
• Real-world challenges
• Life outside a screen

These aren’t optional. They’re your child’s mental firewall.

STAYING HUMAN

Teenagers want independence, but they also require guidance. They just don’t want it delivered like a sermon. So, learn from AI and influence them the way AI influences them subtly.

• Drop questions, not lectures.
• Drop prompts, not punishments.
• Drop humour, not hysteria.

Try: “Interesting that you’re suddenly into Scandinavian axe-forging. What video put that idea in your head?” instead of “Why are you obsessed with Viking weapons? Are you joining a cult?”

Use curiosity as a teaching tool. Use sarcasm sparingly but effectively. Use presence more than pressure.

Teens respect adults who think, but they imitate adults who simply model. Kids listen to adults who listen first.

The most dangerous lie pertaining to AI is the idea that AI is smarter than you.
AI isn’t smarter, it’s just faster. AI can’t think, feel, doubt, hesitate or reflect. These so-called “weaknesses” are exactly what make humans powerful. Your kids need to know this, and you need to remember this. Machines don’t define identity. Humans define identity.

The goal isn’t to keep your children away from AI. The goal is to make them more interesting, more capable and more grounded than anything a machine could reduce them to.

DOING IT RIGHT

So how do you raise humans in an AI world? You teach them to question the world and to question themselves. You ground them in reality and keep them connected to people. You remind them that identity isn’t something you swipe into existence. That it’s built through experience, not algorithms.

And you do all of this knowing you won’t get it perfect. But if your child grows into someone who can think independently in a world that thrives on automatic thinking, you’ve won as a parent.

Raising humans in an AI world isn’t harder, it’s just different. And if parents do it well, the future generation won’t be outsmarted by machines, they’ll surpass them.

Until next time,
Stay authentic and stay human.