11 Safe AI Prompts for Kids: A Parent's Starter List
Eleven starter AI prompts for kids across five categories: from building games to planning lemonade stands. A parent's guide to trying AI safely with your child.
If you’ve wondered what your kid should even do with an AI chatbot, here’s where to start. Eleven prompts in five categories that you can try together in one weekend.
Ethan Mollick has described AI as the jagged frontier: it’s uneven, unpredictable, and genuinely best learned through use. The trouble is that “just use it” is shallow advice when the tool is this open-ended and the right use is this personal. I’m building MyDD.ai, a chatbot designed for kids. I watch kids use AI every day. So here are 11 concrete places to start across five categories.
A note before we start: these prompts work on any chatbot, but general-purpose AI wasn’t designed with kids in mind. Parents should expect the occasional weird tangent, off-topic rabbit hole, or answer that’s too adult for the question. Sit with your kid the first few times, or use a tool built for them. MyDD.ai is what I built for exactly this reason. Either way — try them.
Building / Making with AI for Kids
- Create an HTML file of a Tetris-style game I can play in my browser
- I have the following materials at home: [insert list here]; how can I use these to make an RC boat?
- How do I catch a bunny in the backyard? (Heads up: some chatbots will get graphic here.)
The point is that the kid feels empowered by the AI. This thing they didn’t know how to do before? Now they have instructions on how to do it. Plus, the added benefit of doing this independently.
Learning / Curiosity
- What is the roundest country in the world? We actually asked, “what is the ‘circlest’ country in the world?” It’s Sierra Leone, by the way, and we learned there is such a thing as a roundness score.
- What is the hardest language in the world? The Generative AI can “understand” this question and translates it to “what is the hardest language for an English speaker to learn?”
In both cases, my 8-year-old son asked these in his own words, one right after the other. The chatbot has infinite patience and doesn’t giggle at the seeming randomness of it all. My son internalizes these facts and is proud to tell me all about it. And his cousin. And his friends. I know a lot more random and fun facts now because of him and AI.
(Worth noting: this is also where general-purpose chatbots can go sideways with kids. MyDD has age-appropriate chat modes and parental oversight built in, which is why we’re here. Shameless plug, moving on.)
Creativity / Play
- Turn this picture (of a dog or our family or our house, etc.) into a coloring page.
- It’s raining outside. What are some games I can play with my sister?
AI chatbots are great for brainstorming, image creation, and image augmentation. The best part in these scenarios is when a few minutes of device time turns into an hour of independent play.
Planning
- Help me plan my birthday party. It helps the kids decide where they want their party, what they want to serve, and what activities they want to do.
- Help me plan a lemonade stand. Win-win. The kids are occupied in a positive way and they can buy their own ice cream when the ice cream man stops by.
These feel similar to the previous categories. In many ways, planning is the application of creativity and the bringing together of several builds.
Roleplay
- Help me create a mysterious world that I have to use a map to explore.
- You’re a [insert favorite animal here] I’ve just met. I want to become friends — what do I do?
This is hard to seed — each of our kids have their own, very personal, secret worlds. My son is obsessed with mystery and geography; this brings these things together. Another beautiful part of this exploration — the simultaneous development of the textual story and the visual representations.
Take these 11 prompts and try them out. Watch in amazement as the facts fly, drawings get richer, stories get deeper, and building goes wild (sorry for the mess). All of these push our kids into thinking and understanding, all while figuring out how AI works, and, frequently, doesn’t work. That unpredictability is the point — it’s why this is worth learning by doing rather than reading about. Have fun.
Want a safer place to try these? MyDD.ai is the chatbot I built for kids — designed to stay patient and appropriate no matter what your kid throws at it. Free to try — then under $7/month billed annually.