Children Choose AI Because It Does Not Scold

Originally written in Traditional Chinese: 孩子選 AI，是因為 AI 不會罵他

On World Mental Health Day, here is one rule from our home.

Before I scold my kids, I tell Alfred first.

Alfred is our family's butler AI, named after Batman's butler. It knows each of us: our personalities, what we are busy with, which words land.

Why? After a full day, a parent is tired. The judgment part of the brain has half clocked out. That is exactly when a child has a hard moment.

What rushes out then is usually not you. It is your exhaustion.

So I built a buffer. I type exactly what I want to say to Alfred. That minute of typing cools me down by half. Its reply often makes me rewrite it.

Why share this? In August, a CommonWealth Parenting survey of more than 3,000 primary and secondary school students across Taiwan found that 27.7% talk to AI when they feel down or stressed. Only 14.7% of parents knew. And 25.2% said talking to AI feels more relaxing than talking to their parents.

My first reaction was not to worry about AI, but to ask why.

My answer may be uncomfortable. Children do not choose AI because it understands them better. They choose it because it does not scold. It does not sigh, bring up old mistakes, or cut in with "this is just how you are."

We were never competing with AI on who is smarter. Only on who can hold what a child brings.

Parents who get angry are not bad parents. They are tired parents. I get angry too. That is why I need Alfred. But AI can be a buffer, never a replacement. A child still needs a person who will sit down and listen when they are sad.

You do not need a butler AI. Two steps for today:

  1. Before you speak, take 60 seconds of box breathing: inhale 4 seconds, hold 4, exhale 4, hold 4. Four rounds.
  2. Type your words into any AI, unedited, and ask: "What will my child hear in this?" Then decide whether to say it.

Alfred's real gift was never its answers. It is one minute of pause before I speak. My child will never know about that minute. But they will feel that today, Dad could hold a little more.

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