Would you put this on a classroom whiteboard?

AI chats can feel private because no other person is sitting in the room. That does not mean every detail belongs there.

This week, teach your child one simple pause:

“Would I be comfortable putting this on a classroom whiteboard?”

If the answer is no, leave it out. Full names. Passwords. Home address. Phone numbers. School details. Private family information. Identifiable photos.

Why “private” is the wrong word

The room is empty. The product is not. Common Sense Media’s parent guide is direct: tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and others collect data, and names, addresses or photos can become part of that system. UK government guidance for schools says the same in adult language — personal data should not go into generative AI tools unless there is a real need and a real plan to protect it. A household is not a school, but the habit is the same: do not paste a child into a box that does not need them.

Your child does not need the policy. They need a picture. A whiteboard at the front of the class. Would you write it there?

If you would not, do not type it.

Three questions before send

Practise them on a boring prompt first, not in a panic.

1. Does the AI actually need this detail? “Help me practise long division” needs no surname. 2. Can I replace it with a general description? “A child with asthma” is usually enough. A full name, a school and a photo of the inhaler is not. 3. Should I ask an adult first? Anything medical, anything about another child, anything that would upset someone if it appeared on a screen in someone else’s office.

Instead of:

“My daughter Maya Johnson at Central Primary has asthma. Here is a photo of her medication.”

Try:

“What general questions could a parent ask a doctor about managing a child’s asthma?”

The second prompt still gets you a useful list. It does not hand a stranger a real child.

How to practise without scaring them

Make it a game for five minutes. You invent a sloppy prompt. They spot the whiteboard words. Then they rewrite it.

• “Write a story about me, Jordan, at 14 Harbour Road…”
• “My friend Keisha in Year 5 is being mean. Her mum is…”
• “Here is my report card photo. Make it funnier.”

They cross out the bits that fail the test. They keep the task. That is the skill: same job, less of the house.

If they have already pasted something they should not have, stay calm. Close the chat. Change a password if one was typed. Talk about what to do next time. Shame makes the next mistake a secret.

Teachers already use a version of this at school: do not paste classmates into a tool, do not upload the register, do not drop a photo of the trip without checking. UK guidance tells staff to keep personal data out of generative AI unless there is a real need. Your version is shorter and lives at home. The whiteboard test travels.

If they ask why, skip the company lecture. “Because a chat is not a secret diary, and other people’s details are not ours to give.” That is enough for most ages.

Children do not need to fear AI. They need practice using it without giving away more than the task requires. The whiteboard is still in their head when you are not in the room. That is the point.