The Write Path #52 - “Parenting Throughlines,” with Author Michael Whittaker!!!

Today on The Write Path podcast, our guest is Michael Whittaker, author of the new hit book “Parenting Throughlines.”  Are you concerned about the impact that this modernized AI is having on our children?  As a parent, have given thought to how we need to guide our children through this complex maze of information and responsibility?  How can we navigate this ever-changing landscape ourselves, and lead the way for our children to follow?  These questions and many more will be addressed here today.  Listen now!

Website:  www.familythroughlines.com.   

Welcome to the Write Path Podcast, where being an author, an actual author, still matters. This isn't the place for the Chat GPT experts or the AI buffs to churn out soulless content with no heart.  This is the place where authors share their journeys, explore their creativity, examine the "Why?" behind it all and come together to celebrate each other. This is the podcast for authors, about authors, and by an author, where the truth still counts and words still have power. Join Us!  You have a story to tell!

Contact us on all our social media platforms and email us at thewritepathpodcast@gmail.com  

This is the place where authors know that every page... is a step forward. Let's move forward together, let's move forward today. Listen now.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Right Path Podcast. Where being an author, an actual author, still matters. This is the podcast that's for authors, it's about authors, it's done by an author, where we share our journeys, where we dive into and explore our creativity, and most importantly, we examine the why behind it all. Folks, our guest today, he is uh a writer. Uh he has um a substack, Navigating AI Transitions with Wit. And then he also has written a book uh called Family Through Lines: Discover Your Timeless Compass for Parenting in an Uncharted World. Please welcome Michael Whitaker, and he has told us to call him Wit. So, Wit, how are you, brother? I'm doing great, Rory. So excited to be here with your audience. All right, thanks for coming on today. I appreciate it. I'm uh I'm looking forward to hearing more about the entire process. Um, the there was a line uh that you had in your bio, and I think it was nobody prepared us for the most important issues our kids were going to be facing because they didn't exist back in the day when we were kids. And I'm paraphrasing, but just that right there, you had my attention. So tell everybody, you know, uh who is uh Michael Witt Whitaker? Uh what are you about? And how'd you how'd you get into all this?

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Sure. So by you know, I'm first of all, I'm a father. I have a 15-year-old daughter, freshman in high school. I have a 12-year-old son who's a sixth grader. That's my core, my family, and you know, that's what I wake up every day living for. My day job is I lead strategy and innovation at an international consulting firm, about 10,000 people, ICF. And you know, for the last several years, I've been leading the AI transition there and figuring out how do we adapt to this new world where cheap intelligence is widely available, where the value of knowledge work in and of itself is changing, where the pace of transformation is accelerating and the future just feels a little shakier and more disrupted than it has maybe for the last several decades, as nobody can really predict what's coming next. When I started to look at what that means for my kids and school and the environment that they're operating in, I saw both parallels to some of the social media transition that we went through and where we didn't recognize the impacts till we were pretty far down the road, but saw it happening much faster and also uh felt like a lot of parents didn't really know how to engage because they weren't experts themselves. And so I went on, you know, started to think about that's where the stub sack came from, which was how do I help more parents feel empowered to shape the impact AI is gonna have on our work, our kids, and ourselves. And then one thing led to another, and I ended up kind of an accidental author, and I'm happy to share the origin story of of why the book and where that came from because it ties into I think that feeling unprepared for today's modern challenges, but I'll I'll pause there. That's my my quickie intro.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

I love the intro, I appreciate that. And uh I also love that you're you keep saying that. You said that in the pre-interview too. It was, you know, I'm I'm sort of uh an accidental author, or you know, I just sort of decided right now I didn't think I was gonna be an author. Um yeah, why did everything go so quick? What what is the origin story to this whole thing?

SPEAKER_01 3:23

So there's a week in September, so you know, not that many months ago where you know, and I it's the first, it's how I start the book, and it's the week I ran out of answers. And so, you know, it was a it was a Monday. I was having dinner with the family, and my daughter came to my wife and I and made uh what I'll call a frustratingly logical case for why she needed Snapchat to be in the loop socially at school when we would have loved for that conversation not to come up and to be able to continue to ignore it, but we couldn't ignore the rationality and logic that she brought to it. On Tuesday, I was testifying at my local school district meeting about the need to both prepare our kids for an AI future, but also prepare or protect their social emotional development in the process as these new tools are entering their everyday life, both at school and outside of school and at increasingly younger ages. On Wednesday, I went down to the State Board of Education and gave similar testimony and talked to the chief academic officer about my, you know, partly about my concerns that curriculum updates on a six-year cycle and AI is by no means updating on a six-year cycle. It's changing daily and weekly. And so my concerns about the education system and institutions being uh unprepared or behind, and how do we guide our kids through this transition? And then on Thursday, both my kids' schools went into lockdown. And so both two separate buildings but near each other. My kids were hiding in a corner for three hours, fearing that somebody was going to come through the door and harm them. Their sign of safety was a heavily armed officer coming through the door to let them free after hours of rumors and silence and fears, and having to deal with that trauma. And a trauma that I could scarcely comprehend and imagine myself because it didn't exist when I was growing up, but knowing that I had to be there for my kids. And I think the realization I had from that week was that there's so many conversations that I need to have with my kids about issues that simply didn't exist when I was growing up. So nobody ever taught me how to talk about them. You know, they were my schools didn't teach me, my parents didn't teach me because they weren't part of my world, but they are part of my kids' world. And I had to have a way to show up for my kids when they needed me without always having time to go read a book or listen to a podcast or become an expert. So that the challenge of the moment became like, how do I lead my kids without being an expert in everything they're facing and do it in a way that feels authentic to my family and also feels to my kids like there's connective threads that allow them to have some predictability and consistency of how we address all these different topics so that they start to build their own compass for navigating the disrupted future? And I went on that journey. I felt like I had to do something to have my own way of through it, and I decided to write about it, and and that's what led to the book.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Never hit Substack. So the Substack was really about really focused on parents, parenting in the age of AI.

unknown 6:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

So how you know, particularly focused on working parents. So, you know, not both like what you might face in your professional life as you're trying to go through this transition, but more importantly, what's happening with our kids with AI, what's happening with schools. I wrote a post that was back to school with AI, the clarity crisis, which is if you can't explain your school's AI policy in 30 seconds or less, then you've got no chop chance of parents or students adhering to it and being aligned. And that I went and gave that testimony at my school board. And honestly, I got blank stares back from the board members. Like, can any of you explain the policy in 30 seconds or less? No. And then I went, you know, I kept going back and sharing the journey on the Substack of all right, well, what does it look like to write a policy that both prepares them for a future where AI skills will be expected? That's what I see every day at work. We're hiring people, we expect them to have AI skills, but also protect the development when AI chatbots are getting infused in stuffies as for kids as young as three and starting to create emotional dependence and can mimic empathy, but not feel and that very confusing space for the kids. And so a lot of the substack is really around you know, what's the what are our kids facing? What's some of the guilt? How do we navigate this age of unimaginable empowerment coupled with unprecedented personal responsibility because all the institutions are behind, so nobody can show us the way. So that was the Substack. And then I got into this situation with my family, and I'm like, well, it's actually bigger than AI. There's this whole suite of topics from you know graphic content being available at the swipe of a finger on your phone to the path to college to get a job, to you're going to be financially okay, being a little shakier and more less certain than it was when we were kids, to social connection via a phone in your pocket versus in real life to the traumas of lockdown. I was like, you know, the the modern parenting challenge is immense. And I just decided that as I'm going through this, I was going to write a book that I hoped would help other families either discover or rediscover some of what their through lines are that could help guide them through this. Or if you're a newer parent, establish some of them with intention as you're starting out so that you could pull on the threads later. And you know, that that's that's the origin story. So they're really like they're related, but they're kind of two different um two different passions that I've got going.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

Yeah, no, but you know, they are related, you know, for sure. At least we go with those threads. So um, but I I get what you mean. The um you know, with the with the book, the the urgency with which you wanted to get the book out, you know, is is striking to me. The um, I mean that tells me that that there's some worry, you know, on your part. Now granted having to go through a situation like that with lockdown, I cannot even imagine what you were going through as a parent. So uh I honestly it's you know, kudos to you for getting through it. Um I I can't like I said, I can't imagine. But we didn't have these things when I was younger, you know, for sure. Now I have grown kids, and so I'm waiting on grandkids now that are on their way. And but I'm gonna have to relive all this stuff again, you know, in the next five, six years when they're deciding what they're doing with school. And I don't really see much happening in the schools. Now I don't want to bash schools, but I'm just talking about observationally. You know, you mentioned you were talking to the school board and you got just blank stairs back. Yep. Is that normally kind of what you're experiencing, or is that, you know, um like a once-in-a-while occurrence, or is that really kind of the norm with what we're getting from school boards right now?

SPEAKER_01 10:13

It's the norm. So these these institutions are not designed to move at the pace of the disruption that's happening around them. And you know, so there are exceptions. So we have a neighboring school district, uh St. Brain Valley, out here in Colorado, that I would say is really being proactive and leaning forward, and they've come out with a framework for guiding their educators and students and parents around AI use, and they've got an innovation center, and they're they're doing the best they can. They're going as fast as they can, and and I really admire what they're doing. When I went to my school board in August, you know, the the school board members said, Yeah, you know, this sounds important. We should put it on the priority agenda. The earliest we can do that is January. Right. And so, and then I come back, you know, so I went back in January and testified again. And I was like, I'm back. It's January. And they're like, okay, well, it's the number two item on our agenda. We'll talk about it in March, late March. I'm like, okay, well, you know, we've we've now lost a year where it's changed dramatically. And you know, here's the challenge. A lot of the schools and teachers are, and and this isn't a knock on the teachers. It's just a lot of the early discussion around AI really focused on cheating. How do we police this? How do we, how do we not allow our kids to short circuit the assignment, to present AI's work as their own, to undermine their learning. And the reality is the conversation has moved so far beyond that right now, in terms of what AI can do and and its important and importance in the learning environment of our children, that that cheating conversation really underserves our kids. And I'll I'll give you some examples. You know, there I wrote a post on my Substack, which is about the impact that AI policing is having at school. And one thing that's happening right now is our kids are actually dumbing down their work. They are taking big words out of essays, they're changing writing styles, they're introducing intentional errors into their writing to avoid the suspicion that their work that would otherwise be too good is AI generated. Because you know, schools are using things like AI detectors and other things to say, like, oh, is this work, does it have the influence of AI in it? And I just think we're like, we're just so off track with that conversation at this point that we're we're we've created an environment where the stopping of the use of AI in the in the educational learning process is leading our kids to stifle their voices and limit their capabilities. And and this this applies to the high, you've mentioned you had older kids, like it this applies to higher ed as well. There was an article on NBC News that said, you know, college kids are using AI to avoid being used of using avoid being accused of using AI. So what they're doing is they're taking their own personal work and they're running it through humanizers, which are meant to make sure that their personal work doesn't trigger an AI detector that the schools are. It's a horrible, horrible cycle.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

And and what we're the the era we're really in right now is one where the technology actually allows you to learn or build anything. And it's just this unimaginable empowerment potential for students if they're if they're guided, if they've got within the schools a clear sense of what's okay and what's not. And here, like I've seen my kids be confused on a biology or geometry lesson, work with AI for 30 minutes and come out and be able to coherently and complet and confidently talk about the topic that they missed a key element of because they were out of school for a soccer game. And it's like they didn't have to go find office hours and they didn't have to struggle for months because they knew how to use the technology well. And this like cheating conversation really stifles the potential for empowerment if if the adults are really engaging with the kids around this.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Correct me if I'm wrong, but but it sounds to me like you're kind of in favor of letting the kids just use the AI and let them learn that way. Am I picking that up?

SPEAKER_01 14:23

I'm in favor of them using it with guidance, right? And and kind of direction. And and so what happens it without what's not happening right now are nuanced discussions and open, transparent discussions about how do we use AI well in this domain. And and I'll and I'll like I've uh Ohio State's a university system that I really admire, what they're doing here. So they've come out and said by 2029, all of our all of our graduates are gonna be AI fluent. Okay, well, what does that mean? It means that we're gonna graduate students that are fluent in their chosen field of study and fluent in the application of AI to that field. So, where does it work well? Where does it not work well? You know, how do I bring this into the workflows? They're not absolving the students of being an expert in their field, but they're saying being an expert in your field also now requires understanding how AI applies to that field. And I think the schools could take a similar tact. All right, in writing, if you're if the goal is here to develop your original voice and to really have that sense, you're probably not using AI. But if you're if you're doing research on a topic in order to understand an audience that you might be writing to, maybe there's a role for AI in that as opposed to Google search or whatever your old traditional ways are. You know, if you're doing a group project in a class and you're building a new business, can you hire AI as a team member on that group as your third member and give the AI give the AI a role and evaluate how well the AI did that role so that the student starts to understand where is AI strong? Where is it weak? Turn in your prompt chain. Like give it, like, how did you train it as a young employee and the in what you're doing and guide it and start to build those skills that would mirror how they'll use it in a working world. So it's not unfettered use where it's just hope that they figure out the most powerful cognitive technology ever developed, and you know, good luck, and we'll see, we'll see if you get to a good outcome. But banning it or restricting it or not talking about it doesn't help them figure that out. And so that's the that's the challenge here is it's nuanced. It's not I'm all in and like, yes, go use it uh unrestricted, but um, it's also not a we we can just ban this um and and because they're gonna use it anyways, right? And they're they're gonna find ways around it.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

It's a you know, I never really thought about it in this perspective, but it is an absolute conundrum. You know, I mean when we developed calculators, we didn't go, oh, you can't ever use one because we have to you know do math the old-fashioned way. For a while they did, because they were like, you're not gonna have a calculator with you all the time. So you need to learn how to do the math. Well, now we do have a calculator with us all the time, and now teachers don't care anymore if you can do the math because you're gonna have a calculator. So exactly all that stuff, why bother? Let's get into the concept of it. And it sounds like we're kind of going down the same path.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Yeah, and and and what's happening without the conversations is is our kids are carrying a deep emotional weight around this. Uh and a lot of parents don't recognize this. You know, only something like 42% of parents have never talked to their kids about AI at all. Uh 80 plus percent of kids are using AI regularly, particularly when we get to the teenage years. And I, you know, I was having a conversation with one of my daughter's friends in line at a concert, and I, you know, I asked her about how she was using AI, you know, because I just I'm curious. I'm curious how the kids are actually, what's their what's their reaction? How are they doing it? And I expected kind of a a shrug of the shoulders and you know, typical like, yeah, you know, I don't really talk about AI. And honestly, like it was about a 15-minute conversation that felt like an unburdening of I actually have somebody that I can talk to about this and comments like, I I think I'm using it well, but I'm not totally sure. When I use it, I worry that it's undermining my thinking and my own sense of voice and capabilities, but I feel like I have to use it in order to keep up because other students are using it and their the output is so good from AI that it's hard to replicate it with my own work or to be confident it's there. Um, you know, when I put C in the Google search bar, it defaults to ChatGPT. So I just kind of go there, even if I it's not my preferred choice. And they're just it's it and they don't really know from class to class what's allowed or it changes from class to class. And so that it's just they're they're being left to kind of figure it out on their own. It's not an indictment on their parents either, because it's not like they haven't had any conversations with them, it's just it's moving so fast that a couple conversations here or there aren't enough. It's an it's a really evolving space, and it's one of those, I think probably rare moments in history where parents and kids are going through the same disruption and emotional journey at the same time because this is happening to adults at work as well, where they're facing the same. What am I allowed to do? When do I use this? And it undermines my thinking and my voice, you know, and and a guilt of, you know, am I am I cheating by using this? Is it okay? And their kids are facing the same thing. And so it's uh, you know, it's one of those weird moments where we're moving in parallel to our children, and there's a real opportunity to lead and guide them with curiosity and empathy, not authority. And that's that's what I'm hoping to get more parents to start to engage with their kids around so they feel less alone in that transition.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

So in your book, uh uh clearly you outline the issues like we're talking about right now. Is uh do you also kind of outline a here's a way around it, or here's how do you start it, or here's how you deal with it? Uh maybe some action steps or anything?

SPEAKER_01 20:08

So there's there's several things in the book, and I think we can we can dive into them. So one, there, and this is at the end of the book, chapter 10. I actually lay out the example conversation that I used with my kids around the social connection via app, the whole Snapchat conversation, AI as a study buddy, and how to navigate that. And I could talk about AI waypoints and how do you guide your kids in a space where hard rules are difficult to write and where there isn't a clear map, and then the recovery from the trauma of a lockdown. And so I did try to get very tactical in the book of here's an example of what I said. You know, here's how my kid responded. These aren't scripts for you to follow, but you might recognize uh a way for you to engage your own children in this way and trying to give some some real examples. Um, and then I think the the first part of the book is really about your family through line. So, what are the connective threads that allow you to approach all these diverse topics with some consistency for your children? And then the middle part of the book is about when you're having these conversations, what are the non-negotiables for setting a climate that's more likely for the conversation to go well? And what are the different types of conversations you may be having? Because when when you're when parents are facing hard conversations, they tend to spend like 90% of their time running the script in their minds. How's this gonna go? What do I want to say? What do I think my kid's gonna say? And we all know that like, you know, no conversation survives first contact with a kid, you know, it always goes off the rail right away, right? And then and then we spend like 10% of the time figuring out when are we gonna jam it into our busy schedule, and almost no time thinking about the climate and the conditions that will make it more likely that this conversation goes well. So the book is really about like what's authentic to my family that I want to carry into the fan conversation, what's the climate that I want to create around the conversation. Uh, make it go better. And then here's some examples of how you could actually move forward with three of these very tricky conversations that are like you know may arise in your life.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Now, have you looked up through AI how you should deal with AI?

SPEAKER_01 22:20

I uh I certainly well, I mean I and I'll be very open with your audience. Like, AI was a partner as I was creating this book in a three-month period. Like I I work with AI every day. Every day at work. It's a core part of how I interact. And and I so I have, and I think this is relevant to your question here. So I have waypoints for myself that guide my own use of AI and that I try to impart in my kids in terms of how they interact with AI. And you know, the theory here is as a parent, you you you'd prefer to draw a map for your kids. It's like, you know, here's the path through this difficult territory, here's where the danger lies. Don't go there, right? And and give them some predictability. But the map is changing weekly with AI and some of the space. You can't draw it, right? So instead of trying to draw a map, what you do is you try to give them navigational markers. What are the waypoints that they can come back to over and over again when they have to make a decision that maintains some, you know, continues to be relevant as the technology evolves. And so I've got four. And one of them is own the start, own the finish, which is when I'm interacting with AI, I set the direction and I'm ultimately responsible for the quality of the output. And so I can I use AI as a middle-to-middle technology. And so that you know, if I'm thinking it's my original idea, if I'm shaping it, if I'm giving it direction, I can use AI to facilitate the advancement of that process, to bring different perspectives, to be a sounding board. Ultimately, I've got to know the the content, I've got to own it, I've got to be proud of it, I've got to believe feel like it's my own at the end of it and not just something that I'm passing along out of the AI system with with minimal review and understanding. Okay, so that that's one. Okay. Number number two is keep doing hard things. So, you know, in in the day, in the there's lear there is learning in the struggle, right? Like when we're trying to build skills, when we're trying to develop, a struggle phase is critical to that. And so if you are using AI to get rid of all struggle, to just not do hard things, I don't want to think, I'm just gonna pass this off to this outside technology, then there's real risk that you're undermining your development in that process. If instead you're shifting where your effort lies through the use of AI and you're saying my best effort is in a different part of this process because AI does something really well. I've got, I started to use Claude Code in recent months, and you know, I'm not a trained software engineer, but I can now develop working applications very quickly, and I'm using AI to do some of the coding, whereas I'm setting the quality checks, the direction, the objective of what we're trying to do. And so I it's still a hard process. It's still iterative. I'm still putting a lot of effort in, but I'm letting AI do what it does well, and I'm doing what I do well, and I'm putting my effort there. So that's keep doing hard things is to outsource with intent, is the third one, which is every time you use AI, you're getting value back and you're giving something up. So you're giving up maybe a development opportunity. We have a friend that whose daughter she would put messages from her boyfriend and social media posts through it to ask what it means, where that starts to get into the like, am I outsourcing my emotional development and am I sitting with uncertainty? That gets more concerning to me. If you're doing a presentation and the presentation isn't about your slides, like that's not what you're getting graded on, but it's really about the content and your ability to convey the information and you use AI to help make your slides more compelling in order to tell a better story, maybe that's an okay trade-off. And so it's this trade-off of that you can ask yourself over and over again if what am I getting back and what am I giving up and am I okay with that? And then the fourth one is preserve human-only spaces. So in this age of this noisy age of algorithms and and constant distraction, what are the times you're protecting for only you with your own thoughts? Is it is it a dog walk with no music and just going out? Is it just sitting quietly on your back porch? Like when are when are you sitting in your own head and allowing your brain to go back to the default mode network that isn't task-seeking but is instead the mode that makes those connections, the deeper memories into lateral thinking that allows for creativity?

SPEAKER_00 26:45

Wow. I mean, boom, you you just so much. I I love it. Uh, I mean, I don't want you to give the secret sauce of the book away. You know what I mean, either. But it's like, wow, that's that's on my substack, that's free.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

You can look at it. Okay, I feel better now. All right.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

Yeah, um, no, but I mean, there's so much here with this AI stuff. You know, um we mentioned earlier we were talking about, you know, when we uh when we were growing up or when our kids were growing up and that type of thing, cell phones, you know, for instance, when those came along. To a degree we didn't know we didn't know. And that's one of the reasons why we didn't really steward that in, maybe the way we should have. By the same token, we also didn't know what to be afraid of, right? And so now, even though the parent may not know anything about AI, and the kid still probably knows more than the parent does, now I think the parent is more cognizant of potential um dangers and fears and things like that. Whereas we really didn't think there was anything wrong with a cell phone or uh uh uh an i uh what was it called? Uh iPad touch or iPod.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

iPods, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

You know, uh all of a sudden there was a texting app on the iPod touch, and it was you know, now it was basically a phone and so but we didn't think that was any kind of a problem because it was communication, is kind of how we looked at it. Now I think we've seen so much behind the scenes that we're much more alarmed at what could be. So, you know, maybe the temperature is a little higher, you know, in that way. How do parents though even begin to navigate without simply shutting it down? You know, how do we get into it with the kid and say, hey, let's let's start to learn this together and admit that we aren't experts and that we have no real idea how to control this thing.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

So I so I think something you said there is really important even before we get into the how, which is when when you're not an expert in a topic, the na there's two natural reactions from a parent. One is I'm not gonna engage because it's not a safe space. I don't I don't know what to say, so I'm not gonna say anything. I'm gonna kind of hope that others figure it out, and that the schools and friends and others and my k my own kid just kind of figures it out because if I start to engage here and I'm not an expert, I don't know where the conversation's gonna go, and that's really uncomfortable. The other reaction is I'm gonna put pretty tight bounds on this to keep it in a space where I feel like it is safe and not explore. And our kids need us to take a different path. Like neither of those two paths is gonna serve them well here. And so there's some things I talk about in the book. One is this concept of conversation non-negotiables, which are the five things that create a climate for a better conversation around this. One of them, and and this is probably the the foundational one, is start with a shared reality. So if you and your kid aren't even talking about the same thing, you have a very limited chance of having a good conversation with them. So if you're coming at this with, here's my perception of what AI is doing and what it looks like in your world, because either that's what I'm reading on the news or that's what I'm experiencing at work, and you haven't taken the time to understand what is your kid experiencing and feeling about this in their environment with their friends, you're likely to be talking about a different challenge and a different perception of the challenge. And so you you start with a disconnect. There's another one which is about speaking the tension. And so these conversations are hard because there's a real tension in them. There's a pull in opposite direction. The this technology can allow you to build and learn anything and can be incredibly empowering. And if used poorly, it can lead to tac cognitive decline and outsourcing and lack of thinking and undermine your voice and confidence. Let's acknowledge that both those exist. Now let's come up with a way that we can explore how you use this in a way that gets you more of the former and less of the latter. But if we haven't even named the tension we're solving for, it gets harder to do that with your kid instead of against your kid. So that's one. And then I think the other piece of this for parents thinking about this is you're not having one conversation with your kid. You're having at least five types of conversation. And two of them are really relevant here, which is discovery and connection. So we're not always, when we're talking to our kids, we're not always solving a problem, we're not triaging the problem, we're not always strategizing options for going forward, we're not always trying to drive to an agreement. Sometimes the conversation is just discovering what their world is and connecting and sitting with them in that world and building empathy so that you can move forward together. And I think in a disrupted world like this, particularly with busy schedules where time for those extended conversations is hard, a lot of times we we skip to the later conversations that try to come up with the agreement or the strategies for moving forward. And we don't spend enough time being okay just sitting in that discovery connection phase to make sure we understand their reality and are moving forward together. And so that's what I really encourage when I talk to parents about this is ask the open-ended question, not asking it to figure out if your kid is doing something wrong or to figure out the path forward, but just to understand where they sit in this moment and what they're hearing and what they're feeling and where their uncertainty is, so that you even understand kind of like there's a recent research out of the six different patterns of how kids are developing relationships with AI. Do you know where your kid, what pattern your kid has? And are they a a high hope learner that sees this as unlocking their potential? Are they an anxious skeptic that's like, I'm keeping this at arm's length and I'm not sure? Are they emotionally entangled where AI is replacing human interaction and they're using this because there's something missing in their world? And like, if you don't understand where your kid is, it's really hard in this fast-moving space to help guide them.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

I'm really glad you went there with it. Um, because you know, a couple of times you've talked about how the kid feels, you know, and about the emotion that's involved. I think when parents um initially start thinking about AI, the last thing they're thinking about is the emotional issue with AI and that connection that so many kids just automatically feel. Um I've seen it with adults where adults are getting emotionally connected to AI, you know, in a lot of ways. And um that doesn't sound like a healthy thing. Is there a healthy way to be having an emotional connection with AI, in your opinion? I mean, you've studied this a lot more than I have, so I'm curious what your perspective is on that.

SPEAKER_01 33:41

It's more complicated than you'd think on the surface. So there, you know, I think it's important for parents to understand some of the basic stats. And again, there's a lot of surveys coming out, so you know the numbers are I would say are more directional than anything, but there's at least one in nine kids who have said something important to AI that they've said to no other human and prefer talking to AI than to other humans. You know, it you know, is in your community is that one in 20 or is it one in five? I don't know. It's more than zero, it's a lot more than zero. And and so the this emotional connection is real now. The connection and the depth of that connection is more based on the amount of time engaging with AI than it is the mode. So you might think that talking to AI would be more intimate and create a deeper connection than typing. Not necessarily true because the kids of this generation share intimate things via text and via, you know, kind of like that type-based communication that can feel more private. You know, the bigger signs are do you have a human in the loop? The core question is who's the human you would say the same thing you're saying AI to? And if you can't name a human that you would say the same thing to, then we start to get into real red flag territory. I think there is value in AI. The kids are finding value in AI, which I think there is some legitimacy to it's always available, it's it's quote unquote safe as a sounding board because it doesn't gossip and it doesn't, you know, you can argue about whether the data goes in privacy and training and other things, but it's not going to go tell its friends at school, right? It becomes a space to explore things that might be in their mind and talk it through, and maybe at a time when a friend isn't available, or just to get a different perspective. And if you look at some of the recent research from Sergo Health, did a really nice study with the Jed Foundation, which is a national, a leading national suicide prevention and mental health foundation for kids, and like that study didn't come back with AI is dangerous. It came back with AI has a particular role in helping kids with mental health and relationships. And if that role is it's a bridge between a human connection and human health, and then the kid is also using AI to complement and supplement that bridge, you can have some pretty decent outcomes because you only get an hour a week with a therapist. You only have so much time with a trusted adult. If AI becomes the endpoint where there is no bridge back to trusted humans, whether that's peers or adults, that's where the outcomes start to degrade. And that's about one-third of kids that are using AI for mental health support are starting to, you know, that's an it's an endpoint, not a bridge. And so that's where we need to pay attention. And, you know, some of these mental health services and some of the therapy services, they're expensive in real life. And that sometimes those families don't have the resources. And there can be some measured value from the use of this, but there are, you know, the the risks, and the parents need to be aware of that, is it tends to reinforce what a kid is feeling, not counter what a kid is feeling, right? So there you get into these reinforcement loops where the AI generally is gonna say what's what it thinks you want to hear in order to keep the conversation going. Whereas a friend might challenge you and pull you out of a cycle, an AI is gonna tend to reinforce a cycle. And what a lot of this the early data shows is it's not necessarily gonna introduce a psychosis or some type of a mental health issue, but it might make it worse if it's already there and and exacerbate an existing vulnerability. And what was really, I think, interesting in the Sergo Health study was that like overwhelmingly the evidence shows that the the health of a of a kid's relationship with AI depends on the health of their offline relationships. If the kid has healthy offline relationships with their family and peers and school and think like they tend to have a pretty good relationship with AI. If those relationships offline are compromised, then you can pretty quickly get into some risky territory with AI where the AI starts to fill a role that they're not able to grasp from other support in real life, and it becomes a substitute, not a compliment, and that's where we start to get risky.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

Makes sense. You know, things that we need to be aware of. In writing this book, you know, what is it you hope to accomplish by writing this book? What what's the purpose behind you doing it?

SPEAKER_01 38:31

At its core, the purpose is I want more parents being able to have hard conversations with their kids about the issues that matter to them right now in a way that feels authentic to their family. And I my worry is that in this world where it's not possible to be an expert in everything our kids are facing, that it's too it becomes and how busy we are, it becomes too easy to just let these things slide and hope they work out. And maybe you don't quite engage until it becomes a real acute problem, and then you're in triage mode and you're just fighting a fire or something that's really gotten out of control. And I think there's an opportunity for parents to really be intentional about how they bring their family values into these conversations in a predictable way to their kids that starts to equip them with a compass for navigating this space when they're not by our side anymore. Like either when they're not by our side in day-to-day life or when they start to leave the house and graduate. And um, you know, as I started to write the book, you know, the it there's an element of existing, you know, more seasoned parents that have older kids discover or rediscovering what you already have in your family that you can pull on. And for newer parents, being intentional, like some of the stuff I write about on the book for our family, when I talk about our proven plays and some of our core principles for how we solve things with our kids and the timeless lessons we try to impart. We started some of those when they were 18 months old, two months old, three months old, or sorry, not 18 months old, two years old, three years old. And like our kids still recognize those patterns today. And it wasn't that we knew then that we were doing it because we were gonna need it when they were 12 and 15, but with some consistency over time, they become kind of ingrained in how our family operates when it's at its best, and we're able to pull those back through into some of these conversations. And um, you know, I think every family listening here, like these concepts uh, and we can talk more about it, but like the concepts of the proven plays and the core principles and the timeless lessons, you all have them, and and they're not mine. Like they they're not, it's not that my things in each of those categories are what yours should be. We all come from our own backgrounds, we have our own values and our own beliefs, and there's not a right answer, but I think the categories become valuable and something that helped to hold your parenting together across all these issues.

SPEAKER_00 40:55

All right, so that's a really good idea of you know why we did the book, what the book's about, everything else. Uh I mean, just in the interest of time, unfortunately, I have to go to this other subject here. How in the world did you go from like conception to published work in three months? There are people who have waited years to get their book out, and you were just like, I wasn't even gonna be an author. I wasn't even planning on being an author this year. Boom, boom, published, done. I mean, tell us, you know, quickly what what how'd you do that?

SPEAKER_01 41:24

So I, you know, there's a lot of 5 a.m. mornings where I just, you know, I have a concept of no time for no one, which is uh there's gonna be a part of the day that's just for me that I can do what I want to do. Every writing session I ended by starting the next session so that I would come back to work in progress as opposed to a blank page and trying to figure out where to pick it up. I used in this case, Gemini was my AI partner through this project, and I've used various ones through, but I had Gemini play four different roles in the writing process. And and one was a kind of an overall strategist. I've never written a book. So, like, how are we gonna lay this out? How are we gonna think about the flow? Here's some ideas I have, here's here's some different raw material I have. Uh, you know, AI as an editor at 5 a.m. when I'm writing things and I need a first reader to tighten things up and go back and forth. I was using it for that as an illustrator, nano banana pro. Like I'm not a design graphic designer, it's not my skill, but I had an idea of like this ink and pen style drawing that I wanted to use, and I had ideas for the visuals and being able to make those reality. And then I also had it serve as uh my target audience and take on the persona of the reader that I thought would get value out of this and how would these various sections land. And I think having that being able to do rapid cycles with that, where I wasn't I I still had human readers at various points, but I was able to iterate very fast on it. And my whole mantra, my my whole mantra for last year with this AI disruption was just paddle. It was I can hear this disruption coming. It's like I'm be on a boat, I'm in a boat on a river and everything's kind of nice. The scenery's good, I'm flowing along, but I can hear the rapids or the waterfall. I know something's coming. I don't know how quickly, I don't know how dangerous it is. But if I'm just being swept by the current, I don't feel like I have a lot of power. But if I just paddle, if I create movement, I can take the next stroke, I can change direction, I can pivot, I can bring more people into the boat. And so my whole year has just been just paddle, like just take the next stroke. And I think I did that with the book too. I was just like, I'm just gonna do the next thing and do the next thing and do the next thing and not wait for permission and not wait for anybody else to validate it. Like I'm just gonna go. And if a hundred people read this thing, fine. Like I just like it's something I need to uh that I feel like I want to do for myself and take to to a finish. And I hope that it provides value to others when it's done.

SPEAKER_00 43:51

All right. I love that. All right, but before we uh kind of start wrapping this up, let me make sure because I I forget this from time to time. Um What uh how can people find out more about this? Can reach you, find out more about the book, uh, your Substack, that sort of thing. Give them all your contact info.

SPEAKER_01 44:08

Yeah, sure. So the book is dub uh familythroughlines.com is the website for the book. And if you go there, there's a free little digital guide that's got some of the core elements of the book, a little PDF that you can download, just put your email in, and it'll give you s a quick sense of if you want to go deeper on the topics. My Substack, you know, simplest is probably just to search for Mike Whitaker Substack, but it's also the the website is Mike Mike Whitaker1 at substack dot substack.com. Um, it's called Navigating AI Transitions with Wit. That's one if you want to read about this AI and parenting in your kids on a more regular basis, subscribe there, check it out. Um, and if you email me at the website, if you send me a message at the Substack, like there's not a bot, a bunch of bots that are gonna reply. It's me. Like I want to engage with people around this. This matters to me. I'll go talk to a room of five people in a conference room. I'm gonna go do talks at our local school, I'll talk to groups online. Like this matters now, and it matters that more parents are having these conversations in more communities. And so if there's a way for your listeners that I can empower them to go engage with this with more confidence in their community, reach out.

SPEAKER_00 45:19

Love it, love it, love it. Okay. Uh, you know, honestly, we could go back and forth on this AI raising kids thing like all day because there's so many different angles to it. Uh, I appreciate that you wanted to get this down in writing for parents to look at uh and so on and so forth. Uh you did publish it in three months. And so, in terms of just, you know, other writers, other authors who are listening, who are aspiring authors who, you know, would love to know how you did it, like really know how you did it and really dive into it. But um, and you've been given advice throughout this entire thing. So maybe you already answered the question. But uh, what's the best piece of advice you have for authors out there who um are not quite where you are yet I don't think you need permission from anybody else to move to the next step.

SPEAKER_01 46:05

Like if you if you think you've got something that you want to share with the world that you want to put out in the publish in the public square, just keep doing the next thing to advance that. And mom momentum is valuable. And if you can keep that momentum going and just keep pushing to the next thing, you will you'll be amazed at how much progress you make, how quickly, if you can just do that with some consistency. And I would say don't be afraid to use AI as a partner in it for the gaps that you might have. If you don't know where the process takes you next, if there's something that you're stuck on, if you need an ideation, it doesn't compromise your ownership of the work and your pride in the work and your ability to produce something that hopefully provides value to others if you use AI as a partner in that process. It simply unlocks a different level of speed and ability for you to to drive progress if you're using it well. And so I know a lot of authors have a very kind of visceral reaction to AI and the and the role that it might be playing in AI slop and some other things, but I think that it also can be incredibly powerful if you use it well. So I would say don't don't be afraid to try to use it well.

SPEAKER_00 47:17

Excellent. Excellent. All right. Uh Michael Witt Whitaker, uh author of Family Through Lines: Discover Your Timeless Compass for Parenting in an Uncharted World. Uh Witt, thank you, man, for being here today and just having these conversations and for encouraging parents and schools both to start having these conversations if they're not already, because they are vitally important. I appreciate you being here.

SPEAKER_01 47:41

Thank you, Rory. I really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_00 47:42

Yeah, thank you. All right, folks, that's been another just amazing episode of the Right Path Podcast, where truth still matters and words still have power. This is a place for authors who know that every page is a step forward towards finding the right path. Until next time.