“It’s not being anti-technology to say that [artificial intelligence] is simply not a child-safe technology.”

So observes Brad Littlejohn in the latest episode of Recorded, TGC’s narrative podcast hosted by Sarah Zylstra. The episode takes listeners into a world many parents already inhabit: school devices, chatbot temptations, artificial companionship, and anxiety over what kind of future our children will inherit. This technology is not coming for our children someday. In all kinds of quiet ways, it’s already here.

One parent, Stephanie Formenti, describes trying to preserve simple embodied rhythms—dinner together, church on Sunday, ordinary human interaction—so that when “a robot comes along,” it doesn’t feel like “a substitute for the real thing.” Biblical counselor Julie Lowe presses beneath a child’s behavior: why cheat, why take the shortcut, why trade the hard work of thinking for the easy answer? These are heart questions before they are tech questions.

The episode gathers parents, educators, counselors, and policy thinkers to consider the promises and perils of AI. Not every powerful tool belongs in a child’s hands without guardrails. We need to parent with eyes wide open, recognizing the dangers without pretending we can predict the future. As Littlejohn points out, parents “don’t know nearly as much about the future” as they think. The call, then, is to “be faithful with the next step ahead.”

That’s a good word for an anxious age—and a good reason to listen.