AI homework help that does not do the homework

Short answer: the good uses all sound the same. Quiz me. Explain it another way. Find the weakest part of my argument. Check my working, but do not give me the answer. Every one of those leaves the thinking with your child and puts the machine where a good tutor sits, just behind their shoulder.

The bad uses also sound the same. Write it. Solve it. Do it. Below are the exact sentences a child can type instead, subject by subject, and the two rules that keep the whole thing honest.

One question decides it

Chapter 10 puts the difference into a single line, and it is the line I use at my own kitchen table: is this helping you think, or thinking for you?

The same tool can be an intern or a tutor. The intern gets the task off your desk. The tutor makes you better at the task. Same app, same child, completely different outcome, and the only variable is the sentence they type.

That is why I do not spend much time arguing about which AI is best for students. The prompt matters more than the product, every time.

The prompts, by subject

These are written to be typed by the child, not by you. Let them pick the three that fit this term.

Maths. "Here is my working. Do not give me the answer. Tell me the first line where I went wrong, and ask me a question that helps me see it myself." Then, once they have it: "Give me three more problems like this one, getting harder, and check my answers when I send them."

That first prompt is the whole game. A photo-solver hands over a solution. This hands over a diagnosis, which is what a good maths teacher gives you and what transfers to the next problem.

Essays and history. "Here is my argument in three sentences. What is the weakest part of it, and what would someone who disagrees with me say?" And when a paragraph is limp: "Do not rewrite this. Tell me which sentence is doing the least work, and why."

Notice that neither prompt produces text your child could hand in. They produce a better draft, written by your child.

Languages. "Have a conversation with me in Afrikaans about rugby, at about Grade 8 level. Correct my mistakes at the end of each reply, not in the middle, and keep going." Conversation practice used to need a patient adult who spoke the language. Now it needs a phone and ten minutes.

Science. "Quiz me on photosynthesis. One question at a time. Wait for my answer. If I am wrong, tell me why before the next one, and make the questions harder as I get them right." Children almost never quiz themselves unprompted, because it is uncomfortable and rereading feels nicer.

Reading and comprehension. "Explain this paragraph another way, as if I am eleven. Then ask me two questions to check whether I actually understood it." The second half of that prompt is the important half.

Revision, any subject. "Here is my summary of the chapter, from memory. What did I leave out that matters?" Writing the summary is the work. The AI only marks it.

By age

Ages 5 to 8. No solo use, and none of this is needed yet. If AI shows up at all it is you and your child together, laughing when it gets things wrong.

Ages 9 to 12. One prompt only: the hint machine. "Give me a clue, not the answer." Sit near them the first few times so the hint habit sets before the answer habit does.

Ages 13 to 18. All of the above. Your teenager will use these tools for school whether or not you approve, so spend your energy on how rather than whether. I went through the longer version of that argument in should my child use ChatGPT for homework.

What the settings can do for you

If your teenager uses ChatGPT, some of this is now built in. I checked OpenAI's own pages on the date at the top of this post, and things move fast, so check the current page.

ChatGPT for Teens has been rolling out globally since August 2026, and switches itself on when the account's stated age, a verified age, or OpenAI's age prediction says the user is under 18. It includes a study mode that gives hints and asks questions rather than handing over answers, plus quizzes, homework reminders and break reminders.

If you link your account to your teenager's, from Settings, by phone or email, you can make new chats start in study mode, and you can set study hours and quiet hours when ChatGPT cannot be used at all. Study mode for new chats, study hours and quiet hours are all off by default, so they are worth five minutes tonight. You cannot read their chats, and I would not want to.

A word of caution. Study mode is a helpful default, not a guarantee: a determined teenager can still open a normal chat and ask for the essay. The setting supports the habit; it does not replace it.

The two guardrails

Everything above sits on top of two rules from Chapter 10, and without them the prompts are just decoration.

The 20-Minute Rule. Before any AI tool opens, your child spends twenty minutes on the problem alone. Not staring at it, working at it. Ten minutes for a younger child. The number is not sacred; the struggle-first order is. Chapter 4 explains why: learning happens at the edge of what you can already do, and an instant answer is the fastest way to skip that zone entirely. The weight has to be lifted before the spotter steps in.

V.E.T. Verify what it told you against another source. Explain it in your own words with the laptop closed. Transform it into your own work. If your child cannot explain it, they have not learned it, and it does not get handed in. That is the whole of the V.E.T. rule in one sentence.

What to avoid

Some tools are designed to do the opposite of everything above, and no prompt will save them.

Answer generators and essay writers. Anything whose marketing promise is a finished piece of work. If the product's whole value is that your child does not have to do the thing, the product is selling them the loss of the thing.

Photo solvers. Point the camera at the maths problem, get the worked solution. These are the most tempting of all, because they feel like a tiny, victimless shortcut at 9pm on a Sunday and arrive with a plausible excuse: I just wanted to check. They are worth a specific family rule, because the habit forms fast and silently.

Anything that asks for personal details. Full name, school, address, photos of themselves. Not into a general-purpose chatbot, ever. If your Family AI Agreement has one privacy line, make it that one. The free builder takes five minutes.

Questions parents ask

What is the best AI tutor for my child?

The prompt matters more than the product. Any capable general assistant will do the jobs in this post if your child asks for hints, quizzes and critique instead of answers. If they use ChatGPT, the teen study mode is a sensible default because it is built to give hints and ask questions rather than hand over solutions. Check what your school permits before paying for anything.

How do I stop my child just getting AI to do the homework?

Two rules and one question. The 20-Minute Rule means they struggle first and ask second. The explain-it-back test means they must be able to talk you through the finished work with the laptop closed. And the question you ask lightly, often, without accusation: is this helping you think, or thinking for you? Software controls help, but those three do the real work.

Is using AI to check my child's maths homework cheating?

Almost never, if the child did the working first and the AI is marking rather than solving. "Here is my working, tell me the first line where I went wrong" is exactly what a tutor does. Photographing an unattempted problem and copying the solution is a different activity with a different result. The order, working first, is what separates them.

Can AI help with reading and revision, not just writing?

Yes, and this is where it is most underused. Ask it to quiz you one question at a time, to explain a passage another way and then test whether you understood, or to mark a summary you wrote from memory against the chapter. Testing yourself like that is harder than rereading, which is exactly why children rarely choose it unprompted and exactly why it works.

Sources

• Chapter 13 of Raising AI-Ready Children on the everyday practices that build AI-ready skills, including the "just ask the AI" reflex.
• Chapter 10 on the 20-Minute Rule, the V.E.T. checklist, the learning partner versus shortcut distinction and the Family AI Agreement.
• Chapter 4 on productive struggle, the Zone of Proximal Development and using AI as a hint machine rather than an answer machine.
• Harvard University randomised controlled trial on AI tutoring in an undergraduate physics course; MIT Media Lab, 2025, essay-writing and brain-activity study.
• OpenAI help centre pages on ChatGPT for Teens and managing parental controls, checked on the date at the top of this post.