Ep. 140: Are Smart Toys Changing Kids’ Brains?

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Pediatrician Next Door – Ep. 140: Are Smart Toys Changing Kids’ Brains?

Host: Dr. Wendy Hunter
Guest: Dr. Dana Suskind
Release Date: November 5, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Dr. Wendy Hunter explores a timely and important question for modern parents: Are smart toys and AI-powered interactions changing the way children’s brains develop? Through an engaging conversation with pediatric surgeon and brain development expert Dr. Dana Suskind, the discussion peels back the science—and the uncertainties—around how emerging technologies like AI chatbots and interactive toys could affect children’s emotional, social, and language development. The episode intertwines scientific insights and practical advice, urging parents to reflect not just on what tech offers but what it might silently replace in childhood.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Why Are Parents and Pediatricians Concerned?

• [00:03] Dr. Wendy Hunter opens with a story about a toddler who can “talk to Alexa” but avoids human interaction, using it as a starting point to ask what AI might mean for kids’ social development.
  • “For years we’ve all had our panties in a bunch about what screens do to kids’ attention and learning… And now there’s something new: Artificial intelligence.” (Dr. Wendy Hunter, 00:31)
• AI is more than a passive screen—it's responsive, personalized, and can maintain ongoing “conversations” with kids, which raises fresh concerns compared to old debates about television or tablets.

2. The Science of Early Brain Development

• [03:00] Dr. Dana Suskind describes the brain’s “magical window of opportunity”—the first 3-5 years of life:
  • “We get 1 million new neural connections happen every second by the environmental input, the nurturing interaction.” (Dr. Dana Suskind, 03:10)
  • “Experiences through what we call serve and return—nurturing interaction—literally builds a child’s ability for language, emotional regulation, human connection.” (03:35)
• The brain is unfinished at birth and is sculpted by rich, responsive human engagement during this critical period.

3. Why Human Interaction Matters—and What’s at Stake

• [06:12] Dr. Suskind emphasizes the importance of “serve and return”—the give-and-take of live interaction—as the catalyst for brain wiring.
  • “Babies don’t learn from static non-responsive screens. They only learn from live interaction… that opens up the social gate from which all learning begins.” (Dr. Dana Suskind, 06:20)
• AI’s “perfect” timing and responsiveness may lack the messiness and emotional richness of real human conversation, the “dance” that teaches empathy, humor, and flexibility.
  • “All human brains learn from that sort of imperfect, emotionally rich dance of human interaction… With AI right now it’s looking way too perfect.” (Dr. Dana Suskind, 07:23)
  • Dr. Hunter reframes concern: “Now I’m not worried about what AI adds. I’m more concerned about what it might take away from childhood.” (Dr. Wendy Hunter, 07:58)

4. The ‘Invisible’ Ingredient: Biological Synchrony

• [09:37] Dr. Suskind introduces neural synchrony, where a baby’s and caregiver’s brains literally sync up during live interaction—a phenomenon not yet understood but likely critical for development.
  • “It’s not just words... it’s that richness of connection.” (Dr. Dana Suskind, 09:37)
• She cautions that, like boiling away vitamin C from orange juice (a vivid analogy), technology may remove something vital from parent–child interaction without us realizing it.
  • “We see it as lots of words, lots of language, serve in return. But within that, there’s so much that we don’t know… we’ll be missing the vitamin C that’s so critical for children’s development.” (Dr. Dana Suskind, 11:14)

5. The Danger of Emotional Attachment to AI

• [12:45] Dr. Suskind expresses concern about children forming deep attachments to AI agents and robots:
  • “With a teddy bear, they have to fill in the gaps… With AI companions, these conversations keep going… their social systems are being hijacked, right? They’re going to be built by these companions if we’re not careful.” (Dr. Dana Suskind, 12:45)
• AI removes the need for a child’s imagination to “fill in the gaps”—possibly stunting the development of empathy and creative skills unique to human interaction.

6. Should We Limit AI? How?

• [18:31] Dr. Wendy Hunter asks about safe thresholds for AI use by kids.
• Dr. Suskind encourages using a decision-making framework, rather than hard thresholds:
  • “Human interaction has to be sacrosanct. You never want technology that replaces that or crowds it out.” (Dr. Dana Suskind, 18:40)
  • “Stick with the regular teddy bear rather than the AI teddy bear— that Trojan teddy bear.” (Dr. Dana Suskind, 19:29)
• The big question: What is getting replaced when we use AI toys—our attention, our presence, or something more?

7. Lessons from History: Tech Is Not Inherently Good or Bad

• [20:59] Dr. Suskind advises nuance—technology is not “bad,” but the context and what it displaces matters.
  • “Technologies aren’t inherently bad or good, right? It’s how we use them and in what hands… what is being displaced?” (Dr. Dana Suskind, 21:01)
• Parents need to teach kids to use tech as a tool and help them develop self-regulation, just as with TV and tablets in prior generations.
  • Importance of default settings: “If they had the default where it kept going on a loop, children just kept watching. If they had the default where it didn’t keep going, children have natural abilities to self-regulate.” (Dr. Dana Suskind, 21:49)
• She likens AI companions to “junk food”—not inherently evil, but empty and unnecessary if they substitute for real connection.

8. Equity Concerns—Will Human Connection Become a “Luxury Good”?

• [23:49] Dr. Suskind worries that reliance on AI for caregiving could widen disparities, where richer kids get more human attention and others get “efficient robot teachers.”
  • “Human connection will become a luxury good… I just don’t want this to be sort of like the organic food versus trans fat situation where certain kids get the organic food and the others get the substitute.” (Dr. Dana Suskind, 24:03)

9. Simple Advice: The “Three T’s” for Parents

• [24:56] Dr. Suskind champions “good enough parenting” and the essential, irreplaceable value of human interaction for children’s development.
  • “Children need unconditional love, protection, support, but they also need inherently human interaction.” (Dr. Dana Suskind, 25:05)
  • The “Three T’s”: Tune in, talk more, take turns—rich language, genuine interaction, everyday conversations.
  • “Embrace your imperfections. There’s no such thing as perfect parenting… That’s good. Because resilience, creativity, adaptability… emerge from that imperfection.” (Dr. Dana Suskind, 26:09)
  • “Choose augmentation rather than replacement. Choose supplementation rather than substitution. Because you as a parent are irreplaceable in your child’s development.” (Dr. Dana Suskind, 26:31)
• Dr. Hunter’s advice: Narrate your daily life to your child, ask one more question at bedtime, and remember that the best voice in a child’s world is always yours.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Dr. Wendy Hunter (on AI’s perfection vs. human messiness):
  “What did we get from this? That real people don’t respond instantly or predictably.… Those tiny awkward moments, the little mismatches and repairs as she calls them, those are the things that teach children how to read emotion, how to connect, and ultimately how to be human.” [07:58]
• Dr. Dana Suskind (on neural synchrony):
  “There’s something called neural synchrony where a baby and a mother’s brain literally sync up as they’re learning and connecting.… But what happens when you don’t have it? These are the things we don’t know. It’s not just words… it’s that richness of connection.” [09:37]
• Dr. Dana Suskind (on “boiling out the vitamin C”):
  “We’ll be missing the vitamin C that’s so critical for children’s development.” [11:14]
• Dr. Dana Suskind (on AI emotional attachments):
  “With AI companions… their social systems are being hijacked… So it’s not that their social systems are being impacted. They’re being hijacked, right?” [12:45]
• Dr. Dana Suskind (on parenting in an AI world):
  “This is a funny thought… I’ve always championed this idea of good enough parenting. In some ways AI is making clear that good enough parenting isn’t just a nice thing to have. It is what fundamentally allows us to be human.” [24:56]
• Dr. Wendy Hunter (closing advice):
  “The more powerful technology becomes, the more valuable our imperfections are. Because children don’t need perfect, they need us.” [26:37]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:03 – Story intro: A toddler uses Alexa, but not human conversation.
• 03:00 – Dr. Suskind: The “magical window” for brain development.
• 06:12 – Serve and Return: Why live interaction is crucial.
• 07:23 – The “imperfect, emotionally rich dance”—what AI can’t do.
• 09:37 – Neural synchrony: syncing brains and the “invisible” factors.
• 12:45 – Emotional bonds with AI vs. teddy bears; dangers.
• 18:31 – How much AI is safe? A “Trojan teddy bear.”
• 21:01 – Tech is not inherently bad; what matters is what’s displaced.
• 23:49 – Human connection as a “luxury good”—equity concerns.
• 24:56 – “Three T’s”: Tune in, talk more, take turns. Embrace imperfection.
• 26:37 – Dr. Hunter’s closing challenge and main takeaway.

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Actionable Takeaways for Parents

• Prioritize Human Interaction: It wires children’s brains for language, empathy, and imagination—technology can’t substitute the “messy dance” of real relationships.
• Be Mindful with AI: Reflect on not how much AI, but what it’s replacing in your child’s day.
• Use the Three T’s: Tune in to your child, talk more, and take turns in conversation—these nurture essential skills.
• Augment, Don’t Replace: Use smart tools to support parenting, not substitute your presence or connection.
• Champion Imperfection: Real, imperfect, emotionally rich moments are what children need—even more as technology advances.

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This summary preserves the warmth, humor, and scientific clarity of the original dialogue while highlighting crucial content and memorable statements directly from the hosts. For further information and resources, visit pediatriciannextdoorpodcast.com.

Transcript

[Dr. Wendy Hunter]

A few weeks ago, I met this toddler and his parents proudly told me that their son could talk to Alexa. And they should be proud. It was kind of awesome and adorable. They said he'd learned to ask for his favorite song, the Wheels on the Bus, naturally. And he even said please sometimes. But when I tried to start a conversation with this kid, he would not engage with me. And, and I like really engaging with kids. It caught my attention. You know, for years we've all had our panties in a bunch about what screens do to kids attention and learning, and we still don't really know. I mean, we like kind of know. And now there's something new. Artificial intelligence. It's not just something kids watch. It talks back, it remembers what we've said, and it answers like a real person. So this makes me wonder, given all the recent news stories, you're probably wondering too, what will AI do to today's kids, to all of us? And what even is AI and how are kids using it? If you're a new listener to this show, welcome. We are going to figure this out together. And that's next. I'm Dr. Wendy Hunter and I'm the pediatrician next door. I'm that doctor friend you call for practical advice about your kids health. I mix the science of medicine with the reality of parenting. How might artificial intelligence affect how kids develop emotion and language? And how can parents prepare for this new technology? How do we help our kids and ourselves use it in a healthy way? I mean, that's a lot of questions. I think the best place to start is by understanding what happens inside a child's brain during their early years. Those are the years that shape everything that follows. And I know just who to ask. I called someone who has spent her career studying how children's brains grow through conversations and human interaction. Dr. Dana Suskind. She's a pediatric surgeon, technically an otolaryngologist. It's just a lot easier to say surgeon. And she's a researcher and author. She is a total rock star to me. I, I remember her early work first showed that simple everyday talk between parents and babies could literally change a baby's brain structure. We didn't know that before she pointed it out through her research. Her research launched an entire movement around early language and parenting ideas that changed the advice that pediatricians like me give to families. So who better to ask what could happen when something other than a human voice is answering our children's questions? We started with what researchers know about early childhood development. Here she is the first Three to.

[Dr. Dana Suskind]

Five years of life are a magical window of opportunity. It's literally when the brain is being wired up for all thinking and learning and feeling for the rest of your life. During this time, there's something called neuroplasticity, which is the brain's incredible ability to rewire itself. And it's at that time that that it's at its peak. We get 1 million new neural connections happen every second by the environmental input, the nurturing interaction. Because the brain, unlike any other organ, isn't finished at birth. Each brand new baby comes out with billions of neurons in their brain just waiting to be connected. And the environmental input from parents and caregivers wires up that brain during that period. And it's these experiences that through what we call serve and return, that nurturing interaction, that literally builds a child's ability for language, emotional regulation, human connection. And it's a sensitive period because it's during that time period that all of this wiring happens, after which the brain begins to prune itself. And it's much harder to build those skills. It's not to say that it's impossible, but it's that peak period of time when language development, socio emotional development, all of that is happening during that period.

[Dr. Wendy Hunter]

When I hear her describe those first few years, I totally picture a baby's brain lighting up like a switchboard. Like each connection is sparked by my smile, a lullaby, or me making those ridiculous faces. I love to think that our language, our empathy and trust aren't built from expensive toys or kumon classes, but from ordinary moments. But hearing about this critical period of brain development, that is exactly what makes me pause. That makes me concerned when it comes to these new technologies. If conversations with your family and playing with your siblings are the things that wire our brain, what will happen when your child has those interactions with something like a smart toy? We know it's not the words themselves that we say that matters the most in, it's who is saying them and how that person makes a child feel. And this reminds me of something I hear more and more from parents. Parents tell me all the time that they only use educational apps. What does that even mean? How do we know it's educational? Or they say their child plays with an AI character or toy all the time and they say that's good, right? I mean, it's a fair question. We don't really know AI chatbots. Listen, they give awesome answers. They even use our kids names. So when you're choosing activities for your kid, have you thought about this? Is that Kind of back and forth interaction that they get from chatting with an interactive toy. Is it helpful to your child's development or does something essentially human get lost when the conversation isn't with another human? Here's what Dr. Susskind said when I asked her about this.

[Dr. Dana Suskind]

Yes. So serve and return, literally is what wires up a baby's brain. In the early years, babies don't learn from static non responsive screens. They only learn from live interaction. And it's because that live interaction basically opens up the social gate from which all learning begins. You not only develops language and literacy, but socio, emotional, executive function, all of those things that make us human. And at the same time we've learned that screen time. Right, that static screen. Babies don't learn from it. Of course now with AI, the games, the rules of the game are changing. But yes, you need serve in return.

[Dr. Wendy Hunter]

Yeah, it's so interesting because it just makes me think back to. I'm thinking about our teenagers playing video games and how we think, okay, this is great, at least they're interacting. But like you can't read another person's emotion after you say something, so you're not getting that. Like babies need that too. Like I coo. And then what do you do? You know, what did I make you do? Like you don't, I don't know. So maybe AI is going to have to read the child's face, you know, or watch where their eyeballs are. Anyway, I'm kind of getting off on them.

[Dr. Dana Suskind]

No, no, no, but you're exactly right because we learn from the infant brain. Actually, all human brains learn from that sort of imperfect, emotionally rich dance of human interaction. Those second delays, the slight mismatch and repairs. And with AI right now it's looking way too perfect. I think that's where we're going to be missing a lot of those learnings, those learnings that allow us to become human from exactly that. That messy human interaction is so key.

[Dr. Wendy Hunter]

How much did you love that when Dr. Susskind said the imperfect, emotionally rich dance of human interaction. Do you see why I love her? So what did we get from this? That real people don't respond instantly or predictably. We make faces, we misread each other, we laugh when it's not even funny. And those tiny awkward moments, the little mismatches and repairs as she calls them, those are the things that teach children how to read emotion, how to connect, and ultimately how to be human. AI doesn't do that. AI has perfect timing, flawless responses. They don't stumble and maybe that perfection is the problem. So I'll tell you what I want to take from this, is that now I'm not worried about what AI adds. I'm more concerned about what it might take away from childhood. Because even if a chatbot sounds caring, even if it asks all the right questions, there is something invisible and special in human interaction that we can't fake. Well, at least not yet. From prior research, we know what that missing ingredient is. We have some idea of what's happening between a parent and a child that makes their interaction so crucial. So I asked Dr. Susskind what science tells us about this. As she might eloquently put it, she'd say, what is the quiet biological symphony happening in the brain when a baby locks eyes with someone who loves them?

[Dr. Dana Suskind]

In truth, it's that rich dance that serve and return, in which we don't know everything that's being transmitted. So there's something called neural synchrony. I want to give an example of what we don't know. There's something called neural synchrony where a baby and a mother's brain literally sync up as they're learning and connecting. When you have that neural synchrony, it improves language development, the socio. Emotional, et cetera. But what happens when you don't have it? These are the things that we don't know. It's not just words that are coming through. It's. It's that richness of connection.

[Dr. Wendy Hunter]

It reminds me of, like the wolf children, right? When you find a baby that was raised by wolves or whatever, we're going to have all these AI kids that were like, I don't know why he can't eat food like a normal pupil. I don't know.

[Dr. Dana Suskind]

No, actually, no.

[Dr. Wendy Hunter]

No.

[Dr. Dana Suskind]

Well, there's so much that we don't. I have to tell you. Like, there's a. There's another example. It's not from wolf children, although that could be a one. But there's. Do you know the story of scurvy? A little. So it's so interesting. So scurvy is because of the lack of vitamin C, and for like, hundreds of years, it killed lots of sailors. And then they figured out, oh, it's citrus, right? They actually. It was actually a doctor who figured out it's citrus. So they thought, okay, citrus, we just. We can give them boiled orange juice or limes. But because they didn't know that it was vitamin C, what happens is they boiled it and it got rid of the vitamin C, so they lost the important missing component. And so it took 200 years for them to figure out, and lots of people dying, and then they figured it out. And it's the same way with human interaction. We see it as lots of words, lots of language serve in return. But within that, there's so much that we don't know that with AI that we could be missing. You know, we'll be missing the vitamin C that's so critical for children's development.

[Dr. Wendy Hunter]

That's a great vivid image. The idea that we could be boiling out the vitamin C of human interaction. You can't see it, you can't name it, but it's vital. We might think we're giving children everything they need. Words, stories, companionship. But without synchronizing our nervous system with a child, something essential has to be missing, right? And that raises another question. You've seen in the news that adults and some teens are forming emotional attachments to a chatbot. What happens when kids start forming emotional bonds with something that's not alive? I can't stop thinking about how attachment begins. I mean, I studied human development as an undergraduate. What I learned is that a baby's first love starts with hearing their parents voices before they're even born, and then with their faces, a parent's smile, the rhythm of being held closely. It's simply biological. So that's the next question I had for Dr. Susskind. Whether a child's ability to connect, to empathize, could be affected when their early relationships involve technology that talks back. You'll appreciate her response.

[Dr. Dana Suskind]

This is exactly one of my deepest concerns. Children form attachments to AI agents, social robots, I mean, just like they do with stuffed animals. But this is the critical difference, right? With a teddy bear, they have to fill in the gaps. They use their creativity, they learn things, they have the friction with AI companions. These conversations keep going. When children's attachment systems that have been designed over millennia bond with other humans, they activate this social reciprocity and they learn to be human. But when we start having emotional attachments to these AI agents in little kids, all bets are off, right? I mean, we're seeing what are happening with adolescents and adults, like proposing marriage to AI agents. This is even scarier because what's at stake for young children, they haven't built those. Those abilities to connect, right? So it's not that their social systems are being impacted. They're being hijacked, right? They're going to be built by these companions if we're not careful.

[Dr. Wendy Hunter]

The teddy bear thing is really interesting because you're right, they Fill in the gaps. You know, playing tea party, you put a voice on your teddy bear, you imagine what it could be like if it was alive. But then with an AI, you're just going to be like, he'll figure it out. He'll just tell me how he is or who he is. Right? That's so interesting.

[Dr. Dana Suskind]

I mean, when you think about like the skills that we want for this age of AI in our children, right? It's not the usual skills that we've talked about in the past, right? Because those skills are going to be AI. AI is going to be so much better than us. It's those uniquely human skills, right? Being able to connect, empathy, creativity, critical thinking, all of those skills are literally built in the early years by human interaction. So we're going to substitute human interaction and those skills are not going to be built. And that's what's very scary.

[Dr. Wendy Hunter]

I just want to add that it's easy to think of AI as something far away, but it's already inside our homes. It's in smart toys, storybook readers, and even bassinets that rock babies to sleep. I'm going to take a short break and when I come back we'll talk about how to find that line between help and harm when it comes to this next generation of technology. How do you stay hydrated? For me, it depends on the day. Sometimes I'm running between patients, sometimes I'm traveling and. And sometimes I just forget to drink enough water. That's why I always have a few cure hydration packs in my bag. Cure is clean and simple, plant based electrolytes, no added sugar and only 25 calories. I love that it hydrates better than water alone and actually makes me want to drink more. My favorite flavor right now is berry pomegranate. It's refreshing without being too sweet or artificial. Cure has made staying hydrated so much easier. Whether I'm on the go all day or working out, I just mix a packet into my water bottle and I'm good to go. Staying hydrated isn't just about water. You also need electrolytes. That's why I love cure. It's clean, tastes great and actually works. And for you pediatrician next door listeners, you can get 20% off your first [e-mail] Dr. Wendy with code. Dr. Wendy, that's D R W E N D Y And if you get a post purchase survey, make sure to let them know you heard about cure right here. If you it really helps support the show. Don't just Drink more water, upgrade it with cure. When I think about the holidays, what moment do I look forward to the most? It's the slow mornings with my kids when we get to stay in our pajamas, play games, bake cookies, or just hang out together without a schedule. That's the feeling I want to keep all year long. And that's exactly what Cozy Earth delivers. Their bamboo pajamas look great on and sleep degrees cooler than cotton. They're cozy without overheating and if you need a little reassurance, they offer a 100 night sleep trial so you can snuggle in risk free. But trust me, once you do, you won't want to give them back. And guess what? Black Friday has come early at Cozy Earth. Right now you can stack my code Dr. Wendy, that's D R W E N D Y on top of their site wide sale giving you up to 40% off in savings. These deals won't last, so start your holiday shopping today and if you get a post purchase survey, be sure to mention you heard about Cozy Earth right here. Wrap the ones you love in luxury with Cozy Earth.

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[Dr. Wendy Hunter]

I gotta be honest, I love AI. It's a tool and it makes a lot of mistakes. Like telling you to go to an ice cream shop that closed two years ago. I mean, come on. I call it my dumb intern. You have to take everything it tells you with a grain of salt and you have to tell it exactly what you need. I recognize too that AI is probably an awesome math teacher for older kids and I bet it's useful in a lot of ways. So the problem I want to figure out here though is for little kids, how much AI is safe? Is there a threshold amount of time or a way we use AI with kids?

[Dr. Dana Suskind]

Thresholds are a really hard thing to discuss. I think rather than thinking about thresholds, I want parents to think think about it as a decision through a decision making framework that if you're going to use look, keep what's gotten us here. Human interaction has to be sacrosanct. You never want Technology that replaces that or crowds it out. AI with a smart crib that helps you with sleep and those sorts of things. Yeah, absolutely. To lead easier lives as parents. Parenting is hard, but I would caution, really, about things like interactive teddy bears that do the bedtime routines for you, because what is the AI threshold? I mean, we don't even know the threshold of what humans need for optimal development. We say, look more, serve and return more reading. So good. But the truth is, is that our learnings are just at the beginning. I think AI is actually going to help us understand more deeply what humans need. Yeah. So a lot of people are talking about it a lot. We're talking about what is the research. Obviously, you can't wait for the research to be done. Take a precautionary stance. Stick with the regular teddy bear rather than the AI Teddy bear. That Trojan teddy bear.

[Dr. Wendy Hunter]

The Trojan teddy bear. Love it. Something cute and helpful rolling into our homes, but quietly stealing away our humanity. And I totally agree, parenting is exhausting. If something can rock the baby or answer my toddler's endless questions, who doesn't want that? It sounds like the real question is, isn't how much AI is too much. Maybe it's what gets replaced when we use it. This is not new, though. We've been in this same situation before. Right. When television arrived, I remember my parents worried it was going to rot my brains out. Then came tablets and smartphones. And as a parent, I worried about attention spans and sleep. And we still don't have all the answers yet. Every family, every, every generation has to figure this out in real time. I just feel like AI is different. It's faster and smarter and more personal. It doesn't just play a show at you, it talks back. I mean, it remembers what your child said yesterday, but still. Do you think we can learn something from history about how to manage this new technology? Here's how we talked it through.

[Dr. Dana Suskind]

Technologies aren't inherently bad or good, Right? It's how we use them and in what hands. It's really about thinking about what is being displaced by the screen time.

[Advertiser/Commercial Voice]

Right.

[Dr. Dana Suskind]

Or if a child just sitting in front of the TV all day instead of reading books, that's fundamentally bad. If it's on the other hand, for a half an not in zero to two, but you know, if it's 30 minutes or 15 minutes while, you know, the parents are trying to take a call or make food, that's not bad, right? Being sort of nuanced in that way.

[Dr. Wendy Hunter]

I think not only is that bad, but we have to do that little ramp up, like you have to let your 8 year old watch a little TV so that you can help them learn how to use it as a tool, like to teach them, okay, maybe now we're done. Or this is how long we do it, or this is what we use it for. It is game time and it is not game time right now.

[Dr. Dana Suskind]

No, no, exactly. And being really cognizant of how because technology embed different sort of algorithms, keep kids attached. To your point, there was a really interesting study where they showed how the changes in defaults changed how children interacted with the screen time. If they had the default where it kept going on a loop, children just kept watching. If they had the default where it didn't keep going. Children have natural abilities to self regulate and as you point out, if you allow them to start working on them and building those skills, I think that's really important too. And giving parents parent a break is good too. But we need to ask, does this technology support human relationships? Does it replace it? Does it enhance a child's capacity for connection or substitute it? I mean these are really important things. And at the end of the day we can talk about the AI that's being used for therapeutic reasons to help children learn social cues if they're neurodivergent or. My friend here had a study in science robotics showing that children reading to a social robot had less anxiety and learned to read better. Right. In certain cases, like you don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but AI agents companions just for entertainment, it's, you know, it's, I think about it as like junk food. There is no fundamental reason that we need this. You know, and there's, especially when we know so little.

[Dr. Wendy Hunter]

I think where we land on this is that screens and AI aren't bad on their own, but they fill the space that imagination used to fill. Boredom used to force kids to be creative. I mean, I know it did that for me, but now you can just fill it with a screen. And that brings up a final point that Dr. Susskind brought up that I hadn't thought about at all.

[Dr. Dana Suskind]

What I think about a lot, and I think we come from a similar vantage point, is how do we ensure that this doesn't work? Widen disparities rather than close opportunity gaps. Because look, there are so many uses of AI that can be really positive. Not the AI teddy bears, but AI technology that lighten the loads for parents, right? And as I said, not widened disparities because one area that I'm concerned about is that human connection will become a luxury good, right? Just don't want this to be sort of like the organic food versus trans fat situation where certain kids get the organic food and the others get the substitute. That in the long run we found out wasn't so great for them.

[Dr. Wendy Hunter]

That phrase human connection could become a luxury good. If some children get the good teachers and others get efficient robot teachers, we could be creating different childhoods. So I asked Dr. Susskind what parents can do right now before the research catches up.

[Dr. Dana Suskind]

This is a funny thought that I've always championed this idea of good enough parenting, right? I mean we put these incredible expectations on ourselves when in truth children need unconditional love, right? They need protection, they need support, but they also need inherently human interaction. And in some ways AI is making clear that good enough parenting isn't just a nice thing to have. It is what fundamentally allows us to be human. Embrace that and embrace the power of human connection. Your words, your interactions. At the center that I co Direct Here at UChicago, we've developed this idea of the three T's. Tune in, talk more, take turns, as a way to provide rich language environments. Other people have other ways to say it. And these three T's, just tuning into your child, using rich language, having conversations with them from day one, is the best way to build your child's brain and embrace your imperfections. There's no such thing as perfect parenting. As a parent I can tell you that, and that's good. Because resilience, creativity, adaptability, all those things that we're going to need actually emerge from that imperfection. And finally, when you're evaluating the technology, ask yourself, does it support my relationship with my child or does it try to replace me? Choose augmentation rather than replacement. Choose supplementation rather than substitution. Because you as a parent are irreplaceable in your child's development.

[Dr. Wendy Hunter]

Tune in, talk more, take turns. That's it. Every ordinary conversation, every goofy face, every how is your day? Those build kids brains. And as far as I'm concerned, that's the most important point of this whole story. The more powerful technology becomes, the more valuable our imperfections are. Because children don't need perfect, they need us. They need to see how real humans think and feel and mess up and try again. So here's my challenge to you. If you have a young child, take them to the grocery store and narrate your shopping trip. Say like I'm putting a red box in my cart and so on. I promise it's important. So many of us now order groceries and our kids don't hear us chat with the checkout clerk. I also dare you to sing an off key song, Be imperfect. Just do it and ask one more question at bedtime. I challenge you to do that. Sit with your child and catch up. The lesson here isn't to toss out the talking bear, it's to remember it's a tool. No matter how smart our technology gets, the best voice in a child's world is always going to be ours. If this episode made you think differently about AI and childhood, please share it with a friend. Especially the one whose toddler already knows how to say Alexa. And a huge thank you to Dr. Dana Sutton askand for helping us see what's at stake. For more from the Pediatrician next door, find me on the web@ pediatriciannextdoorpodcast.com if you've got a question about the weird things kids do, send an email to hellopediatriciannextdoorpodcast.com for a chance to hear your voice on the show. I'm Dr. Wendy Hunter and I'm the Pediatrician next Door. This show is produced by Red Rock Music. Make sure to subscribe and leave a review wherever it is you're listening. I'll be back next time with more.

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