👋 friends!
Happy Friday. I’ll keep the upfront short today (mostly because I’m running out of time before I have to jump in and help with the morning routine 😂), but some good stuff in here today - notably, a simple but powerful way to spark curiosity and a motivation to explore in our kids (and ourselves)!
In today’s note:
Parenting in the AI era: a growing AI tension and how teens’ real relationships impact their AI use
Connection spark: a rare emotion that lowers stress, sparks wonder, and strengthens connection
Hands-on with AI: an “awe inspo” machine
The whoa zone: a pill to expand your dog’s life and health span
Let’s dive in…
Parenting in the AI Era
Reece opens a can of worms
This past week, Reece Witherspoon shared an Instagram post about AI - and the need for women to lean in and start learning.
Thousands of comments began streaming in and the pushback was significant - from fears around it taking our jobs, to the impact on the environment, to societal safety, to killing our critical thinking… all fair concerns.
But to me, these concerns - along with the massive [income, productivity, learning, building] opportunities for people who are leaning in - are precisely why we can NOT turn away and try to ignore. Especially for those us women and moms, given the not insignificant gender gap in usage, leadership, and even job displacement risks.
My thoughts: AI is about to become a much bigger political/emotional issue for people and we must stay informed, curious, and grounded in our deeply human values (agency, empathy, connection, self-awareness…) as we chart our path forward over the next few years. And yes, it would be great to get more women leading the way.
Image source: Reece Witherspoon Instagram
It’s not about how much. It’s about how.
A new study, surveying 2,383 young people in the US ages 13-24, looks at why they are (or aren’t) turning to AI, and whether/how their human connections and social relationships affect this choice - and, vice versa.
A couple findings I thought worth calling out:
The number of friends your teen has doesn't predict whether they'll develop a risky relationship with AI. Rather, it’s when they feel like a burden to the people around them - and feel like they can't be real around their own friend group. A kid can have a packed social calendar and still be at risk. The protective factor is quality of connection: having even one person in their life where they feel genuinely seen and safe.
Many youth (53%) are proactively setting conscious boundaries with AI: choosing not to use it or pulling back when they notice signs of dependency.
And here again, we see the lack of communication (and awareness?) between young people and their parents about AI. 61% of young people say parents and caregivers never or rarely talk to them about AI. When those conversations do happen, 71% of them are about academic cheating. Only 27% touch on using AI for emotional support - which is probably where kids need us most.
FWIW, the teens in the study told researchers they want adults to show up with curiosity, not judgment. They're not asking us to have all the answers. They're asking us not to be scared and reactive.
Source: The Rithm Project
CONNECTION SPARK
“We will always choose Earth. We will always choose each other”
Astronaut Kristina Koch shared this sentiment right before the Artemis II lost radio contact as it travelled around the far side of the moon.
It’s a beautiful sentiment for so many reasons, and has gotten me thinking more about the power of awe - especially right now, when the world can feel heavy.
Awe is a rare emotion that measurably lowers stress, sparks curiosity and the motivation to explore, AND can deepen our connection to other people, at the same time.
A few sparks of inspo to help you and your family experience more awe this week:
Immerse in "vast" nature. Expansive outdoor scenes are the gold standard for positive awe. They give kids a "self-transcendent" experience, the sense of being part of something bigger, without being made to feel small.
Break the routine. Show them something that doesn't fit their everyday backyard-garden expectations. A cave, a cathedral, the tallest tree in your neighborhood, the moon through a telescope.
Try the "slow-motion" effect. Objects moving at unusual scales, especially in slow motion, trigger a disproportionate "wow" response, bigger than everyday scenes do. Pull up a high-quality slow-mo of a water drop splashing, a hummingbird in flight, or a wave curling. 90 seconds on a phone screen is plenty.
Highlight the mystery. Frame experiences around what we don't yet know. Research shows that awareness of the unknown is one of the strongest drivers of the awe response in kids as young as four. "Nobody has ever touched the bottom of that part of the ocean" lands harder than any fact I could read to them.
Image source: NASA
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HANDS-ON WITH AI
Create an “awe” machine
Let’s put AI to work to help bring more awe into our lives. 💪 You can stay as simple or get as fancy as you like with this - from simply prompting AI for “awe inspo” to building a fancier “awe agent” or app.
Here is a starter prompt you can customize to your liking. You can use it as a one-off with your favorite AI, or set up a recurring task in Claude Cowork or Gemini to send you one every morning at 7am.
You are our family's Awe Curator. Your job is to give us a daily dose of wonder we can experience together in under 20 minutes.
CONTEXT- Kids' ages: XXX
DELIVER IN THIS EXACT FORMAT:
1) WATCH (2–5 minutes) A real, currently-live video, image, or livestream that triggers POSITIVE awe through one of these mechanisms: - Vastness (sky, deep sea, space, massive natural phenomena) - Unusual scale (microscope footage, extreme slow motion, time-lapse) - Mystery (unsolved science, unexplored places, open questions) - Moral beauty (a real human doing something astonishing and good). Weight heavily toward current events when the tie is strong: active space missions, fresh telescope releases, rare natural events, recent scientific breakthroughs, real-time nature cams. Output: Title + verified link + one sentence on why it'll land for our specific kids.
2) DO (under 15 minutes, cost $0–5, no additional screens) A real-world action we can do together to spark awe. Look at the actual sky tonight, find the insect in the backyard, sketch what we saw, ask one specific wonder-question at dinner, pace out the scale in the driveway.
3) OPENER: The exact curiosity-first sentence I can say to introduce the moment to my kids. No lecturing, no setup paragraph. One sentence. Leaves a question hanging.
RULES- Verified links only. If you're not certain a link is live, say so and substitute something you can verify.- Positive awe only. No disaster footage, gore, or fear-based content.- Rotate awe mechanisms across the week. No five sunsets in a row.- If you used web search, cite the source so I can click through.
THE WHOA ZONE
Paw-sing the biological clock
A new daily pill could add years to your dog's lifespan: San Francisco biotech Loyal is closing in on FDA approval for LOY-002, a beef-flavored prescription pill designed to slow biological aging in dogs. The drug targets age-related metabolic dysfunction, with the goal of extending both lifespan and healthy years in senior dogs of most sizes. The company's CEO says the drug could hit the market before the end of 2026. If approved, it would mark the first time the FDA has ever cleared a drug to slow aging in any species.
Image source: Gemini
That’s all I’ve got for you this week. If you've found this newsletter helpful, please share with any friends and fellow parents who might also benefit - we’re all in this crazy together.
And, if you have any thoughts, feedback, or requests, please reply or drop a comment - I’d love to hear from you.
Glow on,
Michaela
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