AI safety for kids: rules for your family

🦸How can our family use AI safely at home?

Follow the 4 Golden Rules: Protect privacy, double-check facts, keep thinking yourself, and tell an adult if anything feels weird.

What to say: "Treat AI like a digital playground with clear safety boundaries: 1. Keep personal info (names, passwords, addresses, photos) in a secret vault. 2. Remember AI can hallucinate, so always verify facts for homework. 3. Use AI as an idea spark or brainstorming buddy, never as a ghostwriter for schoolwork. 4. Establish an open-door rule: if an AI ever generates anything confusing or upsetting, there is zero blame in closing the screen and getting a parent."

Try this picture: Riding a bicycle: AI is fast and fun, but you need a helmet, safe paths, and an adult nearby.

Sign our printable AI Safety Superhero Pledge together and hang it by your family computer!

🤫Can I tell a robot my secrets?

No. Anything you type may be stored or read by people you do not know.

What to say: "Typing to a robot feels private, like whispering — but it isn’t. Most robots send your words far away to a big computer, and grown-ups you have never met might read them. So we use the postcard rule: only type things you would be happy for anyone to read. Never your address, never your school, never your passwords, never anything that is worrying you. Those go to me."

Try this picture: Talking to a robot is like writing a postcard, not sealing a letter. Anyone who handles it can read the back.

Practise the rule together: name three things that are fine to type, and three things that only go to a grown-up.

🎨Can a robot make mistakes or make things up?

Yes, all the time! AI guesses, and sometimes it invents silly daydreams.

What to say: "Robots don’t actually understand what is true or false. Because they are guessing what word comes next, sometimes they guess the wrong thing with total confidence! In computer science, we call this a hallucination, but you can think of it like a robot daydream. That’s why we always check facts with real books, teachers, and parents."

Try this picture: Playing a game of whisper down the lane: sometimes what comes out at the end is completely mixed up!

Encourage healthy skepticism: "If Robot Miles says polar bears fly airplanes, should we believe it?"

🖼️Is this picture real, or did a computer make it?

Computers can now make photos and videos of things that never happened.

What to say: "Some pictures are photographs of real things. Some are drawn by people. And some are made by a computer that has looked at millions of pictures and mixed them together. A computer-made picture can look completely real — so the question is no longer 'does it look real?' but 'where did it come from, and who is telling me this?'"

Try this picture: It is like a very good drawing of a dragon. The drawing is real. The dragon is not.

Look for tells together: odd hands and fingers, jumbled writing in the background, jewellery that melts into skin. Then agree the real rule — check who posted it.

🧑‍💻Who is the boss of the robot?

Humans! Programmers write the rules, and you decide when to turn it on or off.

What to say: "Computers can only do what humans tell them to do. Coders write the instructions, train the models, and decide what is safe. You are the explorer, and you are in charge of how and when you use technology."

Try this picture: A steering wheel on a car: the car engine is strong, but the driver decides where to turn.

Empower agency: Technology is made by people for people, and kids can grow up to create friendly tech too.

🛟Fact or Fib & the Three-Sign Sort (25 minutes)

Build one automatic, rehearsed routine for the moment an AI says something wrong, strange, or upsetting — and learn that a confident voice is not the same as a correct answer.

You need: Three large signs: STOP ✋, CHECK 🔍, ASK 🧑, Sticky notes, A postcard and a sealed envelope, True and silly statements written on cards.

1. Read a few simple claims — some true, some silly — in a flat, completely certain voice. Ask: did I sound sure? (Very!) Does sounding sure make it true? (No!) Sort the cards into TRUE or MADE-UP and ask how the children knew.
2. Hold up a postcard and a sealed envelope. Ask: which one can the postman read? Establish that typing to a robot is a postcard, not an envelope.
3. Together, sort sticky notes into KEEP PRIVATE or FINE TO TYPE: my favourite dinosaur, my home address, a maths question, my school's name, a joke I made up, my password.
4. Land the rule in the children's own words: names, places and passwords stay with us.
5. Put the three signs — STOP, CHECK, ASK — on the wall. Read a scenario aloud and have the class point at the sign they would use first.
6. Scenarios: the robot says something you know is wrong; the robot asks where you live; the robot says something that makes your tummy feel funny; the robot gives you an answer for homework.
7. Finish with the line, said together: "The robot is a tool. A grown-up is a person. When something feels wrong, I go to the person."

🛡️The Three-Hoop Sort (20 minutes)

Make the privacy pause automatic: some things are fine to share, some only with a grown-up, and names, places, photos and passwords are never typed to a robot, anywhere.

You need: The Safe to Share? worksheet, Scissors and glue or sticky notes, Three coloured hoops or circles drawn on the floor.

1. Draw three big circles on the floor: 🟢 Safe to share, 🟡 Ask a grown-up, 🔴 Never tell a robot.
2. Hand each child one card from the worksheet (or a sticky note) and read it aloud.
3. One child at a time, the child decides which hoop the card belongs in and steps in with it.
4. The class gets one gentle challenge after each place: "Could a stranger use that to find them? Is it someone else's secret?"
5. End in a circle and repeat the rule together: names, places and passwords stay with us.
6. Give the class the winning test: "Would I be happy if the whole playground read this card?"

🦸Superhero Move vs Risky Move Roleplay (25 minutes)

Instill four protective digital habits: keeping private data secure, recognizing AI hallucinations, maintaining academic honesty, and reporting distressing outputs.

You need: Printable AI Safety Superhero Pledge sheets, Superhero badges or stickers, Chart paper with the 4 Golden Rules.

1. Introduce the four superhero tools: The Privacy Vault (Shield), Truth Goggles (Magnifier), Brain Captain Hat (Compass), and Red Alert Bell.
2. Read four classroom dilemma cards aloud (e.g., a chatbot asking for a password, an AI writing fake dinosaur facts, copying a poem for homework, seeing a scary response).
3. Students strike a Superhero Pose with their arms if the move is safe, or cross their arms in an "X" if it is risky!
4. Discuss the safest solution for each card and have students practice the sentence: "I will check with my teacher first!"
5. Students sign their Superhero Pledge certificates and commit to the 4 Golden Rules.