👋 friends!

This newsletter is meant to be a bright spot of optimism and connectedness, but today I admit to feeling a little bit dazed after a week with so many heavy and charged events -  including a heartbreaking school shooting very nearby. I want more than anything to tell you (and believe) that brighter days are just ahead. But I know it's probably not that simple. What I do know is this: as parents and community members, we have to model what we want to see: genuine kindness, real curiosity about each other's lives, and deep respect for the different truths we each carry. Holding you all a little closer today. 

In today’s note:

• Parenting in the AI era: critical thinking: a crucial skill… yet, is it at risk?

• Hands on with AI: Google’s NotebookLM is a fun and useful tool for learning, with cool new features

• Connection spark: being kind and offering support to others is good for your brain

• Breakthroughs worth sharing: not a breakthrough, per say, but an (entertaining) parenting win.

With that, here we go…

Future Ready Formula

Curiosity + Connection

Why? It’s overwhelming to be a parent in today’s stressful and chaotic world. Tune out the noise and prioritize curiosity and connection. Doing so will empower you and your kids to be co-pilots, not passengers, and to have a healthy, confident, joyful edge in the AI era.

Parenting in the AI era

Use AI as a co-pilot, not your auto-pilot: more studies are starting to come out about the cognitive impacts of letting AI chats do all your work for you. Unsurprisingly, it’s not good.

• An opinion piece in the New York Times published yesterday highlights the concern from the perspective of parenting, and calls attention to a recent (albeit small) MIT study among college essay-writers where those who let ChatGPT do it the writing for them showed reduced cognitive activity in brain scans and underperformed over a 4 month period at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels

• Another recent study in Europe highlights diminishing returns on critical thinking with increased AI usage. It also showed that younger participants (17-25) had greater reliance on AI tools and lower critical thinking as compared to older study participants.

• While solutions aren’t 100% simple or obvious, it’s important to have conversations with your kids about the importance of being the driver and creator of the work to sharpen our brains - and to use AI (if at all) as a co-pilot, NOT to do the work for them. E.g. first drafts should always come from us.

• P.S. Another thing the NYT article called out that I felt worth mentioning: Snapchat and Instagram/Whatsapp all have AI that teens are using - to some extent - for this purpose. Maybe another reason to hold-off on social media until a certain age.

Hands-on with AI

A great tool to support learning: speaking of critical thinking, Google has a great tool that makes it fun and interesting to learn about things - it’s called NotebookLM.

• You can upload sources/materials (or, just click ‘discover sources’ if you don’t have them handy) and once you have a notebook created about a topic, you can use all sorts of fun tools to engage with the content.

• E.g. instant podcast episodes about the topic, study guides, video overviews, and rolling out now, you can even generate instant quizzes and flash cards.

Parenting in the AI era

Teens, mental health, and AI companions: continuing from last week’s note about AI companions and the surprisingly high % of US teens who have tried them (72% according to Common Sense Media), and use them regularly (52%), I found this framework from Kalsey Killam, an expert in social health, helpful:

• AI that supports human connection: good/green. whether this is helping people find a time to get together, prepare for a difficult conversation, assist with realtime translation, or potentially even something like AI dating coaches.

• AI that supplements human connection: caution/yellow. So many people are already turning to AI for friendship and romance for enjoyment and convenience - so long as this is in addition to human relationships, it’s potentially not the end of the world.

• AI that substitutes for human connection: bad/red. when AI becomes someone’s main or only source of connection - when they are overly dependent on it - is not healthy. Real, in-person relationships provide benefits to our health and well-being that can’t be replicated by a bot.

Connection Spark ✨

Being kind and giving support is good for you and your brain

When the world feels heavy, we instinctively lean on others for support. But neuroscience reveals something surprising: the most powerful health benefits of social connection come from giving support, not receiving it.

Research shows that people who regularly help others have measurably quieter stress responses in their amygdala and anterior insula during difficult moments. Their brains also show increased reward activity when they see loved ones - as if giving makes relationships feel more valuable.

Try this: Choose one neighbor or community member who could use support. Text them something specific today: "Can I grab groceries for you?" or "Want to walk together Friday?" That warm feeling afterward is your brain literally building resilience.

The magic: In times that call for genuine kindness and curiosity about each other's lives, science confirms what deep down we’ve always known: helping others helps us all.

Breakthroughs worth sharing

Clean room magic: not a breakthrough per say, but to end on a lighter note, I found this mom’s trick to get her kids to clean their rooms relatable and pretty damn funny.

In case you missed it

Read last week’s Glow Note: Back-to-school - building confidence and staying sane