Schools talk extensively about how students and teachers use artificial intelligence, but the family perspective is not addressed as often. And as AI becomes more embedded in the fabric of students’ everyday lives, the adults responsible for helping them navigate the technology may not always understand it as well as their kids do.
That knowledge gap was part of the impetus behind CYBER.ORG’s caregiver curriculum, a collection of free, age-based lessons on artificial intelligence and cybersecurity launched earlier this year. Months later, a counselor and caregiver using the resources say the modules are providing something more fundamental than technical expertise: a starting point for families to talk about AI, online safety and responsible technology use.
DESIGN INTENT
According to Linda Morgan, curriculum designer at CYBER.ORG, the caregiver curriculum grew out of the organization’s existing cyber-safety videos, which had initially been conceived as bite-sized ways for teachers across subjects to introduce cybersecurity.
CYBER.ORG then designed the modules around a fairly modest objective: give caregivers who may know less about emerging technology than their children enough vocabulary, examples and confidence to start conversations at home.
“We wanted to be able to close that divide, to be able to empower parents to feel like, no, ‘I provide for you and I love you and I care for you, but I can also help be a part of your educational experience,’” Morgan explained.
There are nine AI lessons total, she explained; three lessons for each of three age bands — ages 5-8, 9-11 and 12-14. Unlike some of the cybersecurity modules, which can stand alone, the AI lessons create a three-step arc that addresses what AI is, where children encounter it in everyday life, what information users should share with AI, where AI gets its information and questions of trust and potential societal impact.
The lessons, she added, start from the premise that children were interacting with AI before they necessarily encountered generative AI: streaming and music recommendations and customer service chatbots, for example. From there, the curriculum progresses toward large language models.
Morgan emphasized that she does not envision caregivers emerging as AI authorities, but that the goal is instead to equip them with accessible, age-appropriate information and vocabulary so they can engage their children without knowing everything about the technology.
“We talk a lot about how students use AI on their own, how teachers use AI, but it was an interesting position to be able to talk about, as a family, what is our stance on AI and how it can be used?” she said.
PRACTITIONER EXPERIENCE
According to Becky O’Neal, a middle school counselor in Benton, La., AI has dramatically expanded what “Internet safety” means for counselors and families.
She described a reversal in the adult-child technology dynamic, which she said has changed since beginning her career in education over two decades ago, when adults once taught students how to use technology; now, she said, “we’re building the car as we’re driving it.”
Students may understand the technology better than their parents or teachers, she continued, and that gap is especially pronounced among grandparents raising children and caregivers whose jobs involve little technology.
“When I first started, we were teaching about passwords. … Nowadays, obviously, those issues and concerns are all still there, but now we’ve added in this AI piece, which is a whole other level,” she said. “There’s always been, across the last 10 years, this impression, at least for parents, that their kids know more about technology than they do, and so with that, there’s also this challenge of getting kids to listen to your advice on safety.”
According to O’Neal, the modules function less like a formal course and more like a flexible intervention that helps facilitate productive conversations between caregivers and their students. The biggest value she sees is giving adults enough knowledge and vocabulary to have credible conversations with kids.
Moreover, O’Neal said she generally uses the lessons in two ways: individually, when a student’s behavior raises a concern, and broadly through counseling newsletters, the school app and social media.
She emphasized that the curriculum gives counselors, like herself, something concrete to hand families the moment a problem surfaces, especially because, given the number of students she is tasked with counseling each year, she cannot possibly identify every student struggling online.
For example, if a student reports sharing highly personal information with an AI chatbot, she can send the caregiver directly to relevant CYBER.ORG material rather than trying to explain everything during what may already be a stressful conversation between parent and child.
“For most of our families, this is their first time raising a teenager,” she said. “The hardest part with teenagers is having a way to start those conversations without it being preachy.”
O’Neal said it is difficult to isolate cause and effect because the modules are embedded in a “whole child” ethos, meaning the CYBER.ORG curriculum is one piece of a larger effort to support students’ academic, social, emotional and physical needs.
However, she noted that some students whose families subsequently imposed limits — such as prohibiting phones in bedrooms overnight — initially resisted but later told her they were sleeping better, staying awake in class and developing healthier peer relationships because online or AI interactions were no longer their only social outlet.
“Once those changes start to occur,” O’Neal said, “I have had several students come back and they’re like, ‘OK, you were right’, which is huge for a middle schooler.”
CAREGIVER PERSPECTIVE
DeAnna Danley, a registered nurse, and her husband homeschool their 10- and 7-year-old children, but neither regularly uses AI professionally and, Danley said, she found her own research on AI overwhelming.
Danley discovered the caregiver modules through a longtime friend affiliated with CYBER.ORG, after expressing concerns about how to incorporate AI literacy into her two children’s homeschool education.
She found the website straightforward to navigate, where caregivers select a topic and then are provided age-appropriate material to engage with, adding that they appreciated how the curriculum is divided into age bands rather than individual grades and said the wording changes appropriately for different ages.
Danley explained how she often works through the lessons with both children at the same time, allowing her kids to work together through videos, questions and activities. The lessons can take only a few minutes at a time, she said, and are easy to incorporate into their homeschool schedule.
“These classes have actually opened my eyes to … we really need to be watching … and be careful, and teach them the proper way to use AI so that they don’t abuse it and they learn how to use it properly,” she said.
But for Danley, the more significant impact has come outside the lessons themselves: While her daughter was using YouTube for a drawing activity, for example, something she encountered on the platform made her uncomfortable, and she brought the device to her mother.
Rather than simply telling her daughter whether it was safe, Danley asked her to explain why — the conversation, Danley said, turned to how to distinguish legitimate information from advertisements and scams.
“Having these conversations from these classes that we’re doing with them, it helps them not just say, ‘Oh, that’s bad.’ They understand the whys,” she said.
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