Three Questions to Ask Your Children About AI Tonight

The technology looks identical. The learning is not. A founder’s guide for families, from 26 years

of opening doors for young people.

By: Richard Awni, Founder and Chairman, Family First Foundation

Most conversations about artificial intelligence start with technology companies, policymakers or investors. Mine started at a scout meeting.

My son was in a scout troop at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and so was the son of a fellow

father, a technologist named Russell Knight. We kept asking each other the same question: how do we make sure students understand the AI they are already using?

I will give you the three questions in a moment. First, why they matter.

For 26 years, Family First Foundation has connected children and families with experiences that

expand what feels possible: school relationships, community programs, science, technology, sports and mentorship. The lesson of those years is simple. Access is only the beginning. A child given a framework for using an opportunity does far more with it than a child who is simply handed the opportunity.

AI has made that distinction urgent. One student can produce an impressive answer in seconds without understanding any of it. Another uses the same tool to challenge a first idea, test alternatives and build something bigger than they could alone. The technology looks identical.

The learning is not.

We saw the first signs last year, and we started telling schools about them. This year the signs are public. In May, Princeton’s faculty voted to return to proctored in-person exams after 133 years. In October, Harvard’s Center for Digital Thriving reported that suspicion about AI is straining the relationship between teachers and students. The question is no longer whether this is happening. It is who will teach young people how to handle it.

That is why the Artificial Intelligence Institute exists. It is a separate organization with its own mission and structure, and it is building the training itself: a method built on five habits, think, frame, question, verify and command. The Foundation’s role is different. We keep families and schools at the center.

Three questions to ask your children tonight

1. “What did you think before you asked the AI?”

2. “What might be wrong with that answer?”

3. “Which fact can we check together?”

None of them requires technical knowledge. Each puts the child back in charge.

We have seen this principle before. Young people do more with a telescope when someone teaches them what to look for. They do more with a mentor who encourages their own questions. They will do more with AI when we teach them that the machine can sharpen their thinking but should not replace it.

Families, schools, public agencies and philanthropy all have a role in expanding equitable access to human-centered AI instruction that is age-appropriate, understood by parents, delivered by trained educators and able to withstand independent review.

The most important question about AI in a child’s hands is not what the system can do. It is

what that child will learn to do with it, and what kind of thinker the child will become.

NEXT STEP: Tonight, ask your children the three questions. Then share this with one parent or

teacher you know. To bring the Institute’s training to your school, visit artificial intelligenceinstitute.com. For Family First Foundation’s youth programs, visit familyfirstamerica.org.

AI Institute: White House Follow-Up, News Desk Execution Handoff. Family First Foundation and the Artificial Intelligence Institute are separate organizations. Richard Awni leads both. The Foundation does not own the Institute’s program.