Parents, I Don't Know How You Do It

Parents today know that even as older generations had more existential threats (nuclear annihilation), your children have many more threats. I don't think I'd want to be raising a child right now.

- (still) Existential threats

- the Internet 

It offers a plethora of ways to hurt your child (and not just child molesters but many more of them using cyberspace to look for and attract kids. See this important article in The NY Times about parents who are suing Open AI because they believe a chatbot that their son had a "relationship" with did not do enough to save him from killing himself.) 

He started using ChatGPT-4o around that time (sophomore year) to help with his schoolwork, and signed up for a paid account in January.

The chatbot app lists past chats, and Mr. Raine saw one titled “Hanging Safety Concerns.” He started reading and was shocked. Adam had been discussing ending his life with ChatGPT for months.

Adam began talking to the chatbot, which is powered by artificial intelligence, at the end of November, about feeling emotionally numb and seeing no meaning in life. It responded with words of empathy, support and hope, and encouraged him to think about the things that did feel meaningful to him.

But in January, when Adam requested information about specific suicide methods, ChatGPT supplied it. 

To note, there is an article in today's NY Times about the FTC opening an inquiry about these AI chatbots and use by children. 

The agency asked six major technology companies for information about how they monitor their A.I. chatbots for children’s interactions with the technology, including potential negative consequences. As part of a broad questionnaire, the agency asked the companies about the prevalence of chatbots’ “sexually themed” responses and how the companies restricted access to their products for young people.

- School violence and the gun culture. 

Oh yes, we did have bullying in my day but not at the level that it exists in the here and now. The Internet has ramped that danger up big time.

We certainly did not have any fear of school shootings. As you may know, there was a school shooting in Colorado yesterday with two students in critical condition and the shooter dead by his own hand. The FBI is saying the shooter may have been "radicalized" in online chat rooms. 

On this danger, I will say that it is astonishing that many people in this country are so used to school shootings - call it numbed or exhausted or just plain used to them - that a shooting in Utah of a right-wing influencer gets more press than a school shooting of children. Charlie Kirk may have been better-known but children in schools are more important. Maybe that's just me. 

But, we can say that these kids at schools didn't buy their guns. The stats show that, overwhelmingly, the guns were available at home. I just don't get these careless parents. 

 I wish more parents with guns understood how their lives will change if their child uses their guns. Not just in some kind of fine or wag of the finger but possible jail time that will take them away from their other children and their jobs and their personal lives. 

Yes, I will be writing a post about the high schools and the lunch hour situation. That the district cannot manage this - either because of union demands or budget problems - is really sad. Because it sounds like these students WANT and NEED this human connection that they get at lunch when eating together OR using the time for club meetings. THAT'S what the district is supposed to be fostering.

And yet...

I think I am in this very down mood because it's 9/11 which always fills me with tears AND because our country is so torn apart that no one trusts anyone else. Always looking for the bad, not the good and how to divide, not how to bring people together. 

It must be very hard to hug your child good night and tell them everything will be okay. And wonder about that yourself. Because we have less and less control over our lives every day. 

I've never seen such an anxious generation of children.