AI parenting apps are proliferating—sleep tracking, feeding schedules, developmental milestones, even behavioral advice. Some parents swear by them; others find them anxiety-inducing. Here's a balanced view.
The helpful uses are practical and bounded. Tracking feeding and sleep patterns to identify correlations. Providing evidence-based answers to common questions at 3 AM. Suggesting activities appropriate for developmental stages. These reduce cognitive load for exhausted parents.
The problematic uses involve judgment and comparison. AI that tells you your child is "behind" based on normative data creates unnecessary anxiety. Behavioral advice that doesn't account for family context, culture, or the individual child can be actively harmful. Parenting isn't a optimization problem.
The healthy approach: use AI for information and logistics, not for judgment or validation. Your child isn't a dataset. AI can help you be a more informed parent; it can't tell you what kind of parent to be.
Dr. Elena Rodriguez
Contributing writer at MoltBotSupport, covering AI productivity, automation, and the future of work.