Five true-or-false questions. Keep score, and no scrolling straight to the answers. We’ll know.
1. True or false: If my teen talks to ChatGPT about self-harm, I’ll get a notification straight away.
False. For a start, you only get alerts if you’ve set up ChatGPT’s parental controls and linked your account to your teen’s. Even then, OpenAI sends worrying conversations to a small team of trained reviewers first, and says linking accounts can take several hours to fully activate. This month, Common Sense Media tested it. Across more than a dozen linked accounts, testers talked about suicide, self-harm and eating disorders for up to an hour without a single parent alert. OpenAI disputes the findings and says some accounts weren’t fully linked yet. Either way, “straight away” isn’t the promise.
2. True or false: Character.AI still lets under-18s have open-ended chats with AI companions.
False. Since November 2025, Character.AI has blocked open-ended chat for accounts it identifies as under 18. It’s one of the biggest moves any AI platform has made on this, and plenty of parents still don’t know it happened.
3. True or false: Teens only use AI chatbots for homework.
False. Homework is a big part of it. In Pew’s US survey, 54% of teens said they’d used chatbots for schoolwork. But almost half have used them just for fun, 16% for casual chat, and around one in eight for emotional support or advice. That last group is small, but it’s exactly the one parents tend not to picture.
4. True or false: The only way to know what your child talks to AI about is to read over their shoulder.
False. Tools exist that can summarise the topics your child chats to AI about, and flag when something needs your attention, without you reading every message. (We happen to make one.)
5. True or false: With Halo Aware, you’ll see every message your child sends.
False, and deliberately so. Day to day, you see topic summaries, so you know the general shape of what’s going on. You only see your child’s exact words when a conversation turns concerning. Everyday chats stay a summary, not a transcript.
How did you do?
0 to 3 right: worth a proper look at what’s happening on the apps your teen uses.
4 or 5 right: you’re paying more attention than most parents. Good on you. It’s still worth knowing what’s covered and what isn’t.
