A Crying child in the family/school

In these chaotic times, when every corner of the internet is filled with debates about the impact of AI on our thinking and the horrors of therapeutic chatbots are being dissected, everyone is talking about how artificial intelligence will change the face of the family and the school. This article seamlessly follows my previous essays and is based on them in many ways.

Dear colleagues, dear parents – allow me, even in the age of AI, to remind you of something completely different: those who go to school and learn at home are... children. And these children must learn in an environment that is safe and enriching. Not only behind the teacher's desk but also in their rooms at home or at the kitchen table.

All of you behind your keyboards, creating clever texts (myself included), have somehow forgotten that a laughing or crying child does not care about your noble discussions at all.

Today’s era is marked by an almost ruthless war of "all against all" – parents against parents, parents versus teachers or schools themselves, against principals, politicians, non-profits, and educational institutions. Add to this storm a mixture of genuine digital education experts and an even more colourful blend of self-proclaimed gurus who "know what’s best for children," even though they often have no children of their own. The fundamental problem in education does not lie in external tools, including AI – it lies precisely in the smile and empathy of the guides who lead children from birth to adulthood. At home, in school, and in society.

If we add the changing perception of the family: mothers who no longer need fathers, media shortcuts portraying teachers as hysterical or overly dramatic, drunk parents, aggressive businessmen pushing their children at any cost, and officials ousting school principals on political orders… it’s no wonder what kind of reputation today’s education system and the family as such have. These are all just theatrical backdrops for a battle over budgets or shifting various sized sacks from one pile to another for... fill in the blank yourself.

I remind you again, and emphatically: The foundation of any good education is always the family and its internal balance.

The psychological state of every family member carries a mosaic of neurotic patterns. Parents often unconsciously lay their unresolved partnership tensions on the sacrificial altar of their own ambitions, insecurities, and disappointments. And in this undeclared war, children become mere pawns of fate. A child’s ability to resist pressure is influenced by age, attachment style, personality development, and limited life experience. Under such conditions, a child simply cannot fulfil the parents' expectations, especially when those are merely a reflection of their own unsatisfied ambitions. Parents often project expectations onto their children that exceed their abilities, talent, and maturity. They expect them to be adult confidants, substitute partners, sources of unfulfilled dreams, interpreters of family conflicts, allies, or even spies in the enemy camp. The child thus becomes not only a weapon but also an easily manipulated target.

The family is the first and most important classroom in which a child learns. The mother and father are the key teachers. However, if parents are disappointed in each other and do not know how to process these feelings, they become literally insane educators. The child perceives the world through them – their values, attitudes, and self-image are filtered through this family lens. And if parents live more in their fantasies than in reality, they offer the child a distorted view of the world. Even the smartest "artificial canned goods" cannot fix that. It can be friendly, even sycophantic, but it just keeps blabbing and blabbing...

In my practice, I hear parents almost daily denying responsibility for their child's problems... genetics, the grandmother, the north wind... Anything but their responsibility. And now we conveniently toss in generative AI to make our excuses sound damn modern. And believe me, parents today really do bring these statements into the teachers' offices...

Parents rarely stop to think that their children's difficulties may reflect their own behaviour, attitudes, and parenting style. Digitalization has changed nothing about this. It was the same in a prehistoric cave, a medieval palace, and a cottage in an ancient village. And it will be the same in a skyscraper office – if parents at that time still understand their children at all and haven't outsourced upbringing to a robotic nanny. More precisely, if they even have children at all...

If the domestic emotional climate is stable and the caregivers (yes, I acknowledge the new concept of family) live in harmony, children can withstand almost any parenting style – strict or liberal, demanding or rewarding. Children have incredible resilience if they grow up in an empathetic family environment. But if the home is full of hostility, confusing commands, and constant chaos, any school strategy will fail. Neither AI nor therapeutic chatbots will save it. No matter how good they are. No "therapeutic plastic" can simply perceive the non-verbal signs of a child's grief... I already know of cases where a parent decided to use a chatbot to replace a simple bedtime talk for a ten-year-old girl. The parent then spent time in the living room chatting with... I’d rather not even write what.

Contemporary society showers families with a hailstorm of conflicting expectations: career, money, identity, politics, war… and additionally bombs us with endless stimuli from screens, as if we needed some external Socrates to answer everything. The parental mind can’t take much more that doesn't bring immediate joy. Education is not an amusement park, even if it brings situations like a roller coaster. It is part of our history – a place where we encounter stress, but also knowledge of the world, and above all, ourselves.

We find ourselves in a media storm that has reformatted our life values. Are there even any left? Added to this is the lightning-fast spread of information, virtual life, increasing alienation, and life "at a click." Today’s world is interwoven with an invisible but omnipresent psychological tension. Yet sociological studies show that actual external disasters – natural catastrophes, economic crises, or political upheavals – often bond families together. The worse and more insidious stress lurks inside the family. A war that crushes the unit from within. This applies to politics, and to the family especially.

Many children's problems lies directly in parents who force their offspring to tune themselves according to their dreams and fantasies, while simply ignoring the child's real needs and strengths.

Can the school do anything about it? Yes, through the patient and sensitive diplomacy of teachers, counsellors, principals, and school psychologists. Only they can lead parents to their own awareness and willingness to cooperate – without cheap feelings of guilt and shame. And we are back to traditional values. But who in school today still has time for these basic pillars? From my own experience, I fear that few do. And AI in such a context can do far more harm than good.

I am not going to list the typical advice given by psychologists and a range of would-be consultants who seemingly solve the problems of children and families, but basically are just trying to make a living. Not all of them are like that, but you could surely find examples of the others yourselves. What I do believe in is the necessity of a certain correction of the digitally artificial world, which only deepens all these tendencies. And I am writing this as someone who couldn't imagine a school without interactive whiteboards and software!!

The school can indeed play the role of a certain corrector... "regulations again," you might object... Those who understand where I am heading already know, and those who don't understand probably cannot be helped in today's wild world... The school can become a firm support for children and parents only when it returns to its basic mission: to provide a safe background, care for emotional stability, and support growth through genuine dialogue, understanding, and empathy. Only on such a foundation can technology – including AI – function as a useful supplement, not as a false saviour.