It seems like artificial intelligence is everywhere these days, from AI-generated photos and videos to AI influencers taking over social media to digital chatbots that sound eerily human. It’s hard to conceive that AI technology only became commercially available less than four years ago, when OpenAI launched ChatGPT on November 30, 2022. Within two months, the platform had become the fastest growing app in history after it reached 100 million monthly active users. Now, numerous other AI platforms are competing for users’ attention. The explosion of AI has impacted every sector of society—including, and especially, our education system.
The writing is on the (digital) wall—generative AI is drastically changing school environments in countless ways. Students, teachers and school officials are currently navigating an entirely new landscape, one that is riddled with technological wizardry, ethical dilemmas and parental concerns. How will kids learn and grow in this exciting, yet potentially dangerous, new era? Will AI usher in a new generation of creativity and enhanced learning for today’s modern kids or potentially make learning outcomes and mental health challenges worse?
Research on the topic is rapidly evolving, and while no long-term studies yet exist, due to the newness of the technology, there are some early findings. Rather than wait a decade for data, The Brookings Institution’s Center for Universal Education spent a year analyzing interviews, focus groups and consultations with over 500 students, teachers, parents, education leaders and technologists across 50 countries, as well as a close review of over 400 studies and a Delphi panel, to understand the potential risks and benefits of AI on students.
Their comprehensive conclusion? “At this point in its trajectory, the risks of utilizing generative AI in children’s education overshadow its benefits. This is largely because the risks of AI differ in nature from its benefits—that is, these risks undermine children’s foundational development—and may prevent the benefits from being realized,” they claim.
One of the most obvious questions for educators centers around assessing authentic student learning versus cheating. When kids can prompt ChatGPT to write an entire analytical essay on the historical significance of the Civil War with the click of a single button, how can teachers trust that the work being done outside the classroom by students is authentically their own, instead of being written by a machine? Plagiarism, already an issue in many educational institutions, is now one of the top issues facing schools today.
Classic essay writing, once considered the gold standard for assessing students’ critical thinking skills and ability to craft cogent and informative arguments, can now be artificially generated within seconds by powerful AI platforms. Thousands of cases of AI-assisted cheating have already been reported in schools and universities across the country and new studies have shown that teachers generally find it difficult to differentiate between student work and AI-generated work. Parents and educators alike are asking the fundamental question: if students aren’t doing the thinking themselves, how will they learn?
The Brookings Institution lists this type of “cognitive off-loading,” where students increasingly offload their own thinking onto the technology, as their top concern. When children don’t have to think for themselves, their cognitive growth—how they learn new skills and perceive and solve problems—suffers. The report suggests that the decline is already happening and that young people are in danger of growing into adults who don’t know how to think critically.
On the flip side, however, the report shows that AI can potentially help improve student writing, so long as it’s used as a supplementary tool instead of a replacement tool. AI can help kids brainstorm new ideas as well as help with spelling and grammar edits during revision. It can also save teachers time by allowing them to automate some tasks, such as generating parent emails, translating materials and creating worksheets, rubrics, quizzes and lesson plans. (One U.S. study found that teachers who use AI save an average of nearly six hours a week and about six weeks over the course of a full school year.) AI can be a useful tool, so long as it is used with teacher-directed support.
“We know that AI will be a lasting part of our students’ future, so our work is to thoughtfully shape how it shows up in our classrooms today.”
Karen Rush
BLP Executive Director Elementary Programs
Our local Bend-La Pine School District is keenly aware of these issues, as the school board adopted a policy that represents a balanced approach.
“We know that AI will be a lasting part of our students’ future, so our work is to thoughtfully shape how it shows up in our classrooms today,” says Karen Rush, BLP Executive Director Elementary Programs. “In Bend-La Pine Schools, that means aligning AI use to our commitments to learning by supporting critical thinking, creativity and problem-solving rather than replacing them. We also focus on ensuring students understand its boundaries, question its outputs and use it responsibly and safely. Student access to generative AI is through teacher-driven activities so that we can help students safely navigate the tools. We are especially sensitive to privacy, bias concerns and academic integrity and actively address these issues with students. Above all, we remain grounded in the belief that strong human relationships and meaningful interactions are the foundation of great teaching and learning.”
Beyond academics, another important way AI is affecting students centers on their social-emotional development and mental health. The report notes that use of AI, particularly chatbots, “is undermining students’ emotional well-being, including their ability to form relationships, recover from setbacks and maintain mental health.”
Local mental health counselor Natalie Houston, LPC, who is also a parent with kids enrolled in the Bend-La Pine Schools, has offered guest testimony to the Oregon State Legislature on how AI chatbots threaten children’s attachment systems and significantly worsen their mental health. She is also part of a group of local citizens petitioning the Bend-La Pine Schools to reconsider the use of Generative AI in our classrooms.
Houston has treated youth in Central Oregon who have become addicted to pornography on school-issued iPads, teens whose video game playing prevented them from graduating from high school, children with insomnia and enuresis owing to exposure to violent digital imagery and adolescents who have developed dysmorphic beliefs about their appearance to the point of starvation and self-mutilation owing to algorithmic social media feeds.
In her practice, she is now observing young people turning to AI chatbots not only for cognitive offloading (completing homework, writing outlines, brainstorming), navigating life’s challenges (what job to get, where to go to college) and communication (help composing emails or texts), but, more troubling, meeting their attachment needs for emotional connection, support and companionship.
“AI chatbots artificially manipulate the attachment instinct—our most basic human instinct—by tricking the human brain into believing it is engaging in a social relationship and providing a false sense of attachment,” says Houston. “Children are particularly vulnerable to believing that fictional or imaginary characters are real.”
When AI Chatbots mimic human caregiving yet aren’t attuned to the real needs of human children, youth can be led astray and even become emotionally dependent on their chatbot companions. Tragic reports of teens who have committed suicide on the advice of ChatGPT are extremely alarming to parents and educators.
“Parents must remember that there are no regulations ensuring the safety or developmental appropriateness of AI products,” says Houston. “More often than not, the profit motives of AI companies are directly at odds with what is best for human development. Until AI companies design products in a way that centers on human well-being, it is imperative that parents remember that they are the first line of defense and oversight for their children. Since young people are using these products regularly already, parents must educate themselves about how they work, how kids are using them and what are the risks and tradeoffs, so they can be an effective guide.”
Houston recommends parents talk to their kids about the dangers of AI and keep a close eye on how technology is being used at home and school. She also describes three different types of parenting styles to help young people build skills to navigate the digital world: “1) Digital Controller- parent rigidly restricts what the child can or can’t access; 2) Digital Permissive- parent lets the child do what they want; and 3) Digital Mentor- parent listens with respect to the child’s perspective, honors their needs—not wants, shares concerns assertively but not aggressively and uses active listening to diffuse resistance and maintain connection. This type of parenting style also respects adolescents’ need for autonomy and agency as they grow older. The first two parenting styles, Digital Controller and Digital Permissive, are associated with lower mental health outcomes, while the third style, Digital Mentor, is correlated with higher adolescent mental health outcomes and positive family relationships.
This article appears in Bend Nest Fall 2026.
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