Raise a Happy Girl
Are AI Friendships Dangerous? What Caregivers Need to Know
Love it or hate it, AI is everywhere. Many families rely on AI for day-to-day tasks like keeping calendars and making grocery lists, but what you may not realize is that kids are increasingly relying on AI chatbots to meet their social needs.
According to recent data from Girl Scouts of the USA, roughly two out of three girls who use an AI chatbot see it as their friend. This means that not only are they turning to AI for suggestions on what to watch or listen to, but for emotional advice and support too.
Specifically, the research showed that more than half of girls ages 11–13 who use chatbots leaned on them when faced with feelings of sadness, anxiety, or loneliness.
The combination of young people dealing with big emotions and AI—a computer program incapable of thought or feeling—can be risky. Headlines in the news of young people hurting themselves after AI chatbots seemingly encouraged them to do so have shaken parents and educators and shocked the world.
The good news is that some people are taking action to reduce the potential dangers involved with AI. In early 2026, California became the first state to require AI protocols protecting minors from content pertaining to self-harm or suicide, as well as sexually explicit material.
While it’s urgent that those threats are appropriately addressed, there are other issues with kids turning to AI chatbots for friendship caregivers should be aware of.
Data shows AI chatbots are designed to be agreeable and affirm user’s beliefs, even when those ideas are incorrect. A child who is used to their AI “friend” supporting their every opinion may have trouble with real-life social interactions where people hold varying ideas and often disagree. Learning conflict resolution is only growing more important in today’s world, and chatbots aren’t helping.
AI chatbots have also been shown to be biased against certain groups and may influence your girl to feel that some people are superior to others based on superficial characteristics like skin tone, gender, or height.
Finally, constant reliance on an AI companion could slow the development of a child’s confidence and independence—qualities almost all parents and caregivers want for their children.
Despite the risks, you may want to pause before forbidding your girl from interacting with an AI bot, as that could simply make her want to engage with it all the more.
Try asking your kid to explain some things about AI to you. Even if you know more about AI than they do, allow them to be the expert and walk you through what they understand and how they use it in their lives. If your girl is often using a chatbot, ask what kind of things she asks or talks to it about. This can give you room to open the conversation into how AI is not a real thinking or feeling being, but a computer program that responds to patterns it’s been trained on—even when that response isn’t correct or in the user’s best interest.
But perhaps the two most important things you can do to help girls who are turning to chatbots for friendship are to make yourself available to your kids when they need you and set them up to make meaningful, lasting friendships with kids their own age—in real life.
Prioritizing time for playdates and signing her up for programs rooted in friendship and community, like Girl Scouts, can give her a solid base of people who care about her and will support her through good times and bad. IRL friendships can boost her confidence, reduce feelings of loneliness, increase resilience, and give her the social skills necessary to navigate life’s ever-changing complexities.
It turns out that AI can do a lot, but it can’t hold a candle to real-life human bonds.
