‘Good Enough’ Parenting Has Always Been Powerful.

As the swirl of confusion and panic around AI continues, I have the privilege of featuring a guest essay by Dana Suskind, MD. Her book, “Human Raised: Nurturing Connection, Curiosity and Lifelong Learning in the Age of AI” will be released TODAY, July 14.

‘Good Enough’ Parenting Has Always Been Powerful. It’s Even More Important in the Age of AI, by Dana Suskind, MD

I’m a pediatric surgeon, a researcher, and the mother of eight children — three biological, five bonus. Some days I congratulated myself for making sure everyone had clean socks. When one of them ate something resembling a vegetable, it felt like a major triumph. And yes, sometimes I lost my patience (and occasionally, my mind) with the beautiful, relentless chaos of it all.

At times, the chaotic moments felt like little failures. The exasperated tone I knew better than to use. The homework questions I struggled to answer. The bedtime routines that dissolved into tears — mine and theirs. I’ve spent decades studying child development, and I still stumbled, miscalculated, and got it wrong in ways that felt unforgivable when I revisited them in my head in the middle of the night.

But here’s what I’ve come to understand, especially as I’ve spent the last several years researching the acceleration of artificial intelligence into early childhood: Those stumbles aren’t failures. They’re not even just helpful. They are the foundation, the raw material out of which resilience, judgment and real-world competence are built. Take them away, and you undermine the entire structure They’re essential.

Especially now.

We are raising children in a tech-saturated world. Interactive plushies promise to engage our toddlers. AI chatbots offer to be their companions. Screens dominate their world from an increasingly young age. Forty percent of children have their

own tablet by age 2, according to Common Sense Media data. Technology is often, understandably, impossible for an exhausted parent to compete with. And in the case of AI-driven, interactive tech, it’s patient, responsive, consistent, and fast. It never snaps. It never forgets. It is available at 2 a.m. without complaint.

But it’s profoundly insufficient for raising a human being.

This isn’t just my sentiment. It’s developmental science. Children don’t grow through flawless responsiveness. They grow through mismatches and repairs. When a parent loses their temper and then comes back to apologize, something important happens in a child’s brain. When a mother is distracted and misses a cue, and then notices and reconnects — that repair is where resilience is forged. That friction is where flexibility, emotional regulation, and the earliest architecture of empathy are wired into the brain.

Developmental psychologists call this “good enough” parenting. I’ve spent years touting — and practicing — it. But the phrase deserves more reverence than it gets. It doesn’t mean mediocre. It means human. It means present, responsive, imperfect, and real. And the research is unambiguous: Children benefit. They don’t need algorithmic perfection. They need you. Uniquely, sometimes-frustrating you. So they can grow into uniquely, understanding, feeling humans.

I want to be clear: I’m not anti-technology. As a pediatric cochlear implant surgeon, I’ve spent my career at the intersection of health and innovation. I’ve witnessed what tech can accomplish that human hands can’t do alone. And I see the promise of AI to solve challenges that have plagued us — plagued the patients I serve — for decades. Predictive technology can help us identify children who may need early intervention. It can extend the reach of therapists, bridge waiting lists, and offer families guidance when professional resources are scarce. These are not small things.

But there is a critical difference between AI that enhances human connection and AI that attempts to replace it. A weather forecast can tell you a storm is coming; it can’t shelter you from the rain. It can’t sit beside you while the thunder rolls outside and help you feel safe enough to fall asleep anyway. That’s the work (and the privilege, I would argue) of parents. And no algorithm can truly do it.

In my book, Human Raised: Nurturing Connection, Curiosity, and Lifelong Learning in the Age of AI (out today!), I created a set of principles to help parents guide their decisions around AI. They spell — and, ideally, offer — HOPE.

● Human connection is irreplaceable

● Own the imperfections

● Protect the early years

● Enhance, don’t replace, adult-child interaction

Of all four principles, the one I fear we overlook the most is the second one: Own the imperfections.

The messy moments, the times you wish you could have a redo, the moments where you said the wrong thing or arrived five minutes late — these aren’t gaps in your parenting. They’re where human connection is born.

Consider what happens in the brain when a child experiences a rupture and then a repair with a trusted adult. The relationship doesn’t just survive that friction; it deepens because of it. The child learns that connection can break and be mended.

They learn that love is not conditional on perfection. They learn that when things go sideways, the people who matter will come back. These are lessons that can’t be learned from a frictionless, always agreeable chatbot.

It goes the other direction too. Every stumble teaches you something about your child that no app can reveal. When you get it wrong and your child tells you — with their words, their tears or even their silence — what they actually needed, you’re learning who they are. You’re building a knowledge of them that is particular, irreplaceable, and yours alone. You’re honing your parental GPS, if you will.

Alexa might be able to patiently answer every rapid-fire question your child throws her way, even when it’s dinnertime and everyone (including you) is about to melt down. But an algorithm’s answers will never build your child’s brain the way yours will. Because your answers come with connection and care. Because your answers wire your child’s brain with the skills they’ll need to interact with other humans all their lives.

Future-proofing Your Child

We’re spending enormous energy wondering whether our children will be able to compete with AI. We’re enrolling them in coding camps, buying them educational technology, making ourselves anxious about keeping pace with a future that moves faster than we can keep up. And I understand that impulse.

But I think we’re asking the wrong question.

The biggest advantage your child can have is not learning to out-compete AI. It’s learning to out-connect it.

Because in an increasingly virtual, tech-saturated world, children who can walk into a room and comfortably talk to another human being will stand out. The ones who can read facial expressions, notice when someone’s tone has shifted, sense when a friend feels left out, repair a misunderstanding without being prompted, make eye contact without reaching for their phone? They’ll be poised to thrive.

These are ancient human skills. We’ve honed and relied on them for millennia. And no algorithm can truly replicate them.

As more of daily life moves online, in-person connection doesn’t become less valuable, it becomes more valuable. When you prioritize the family dinner table,

the long unscheduled afternoon, the hard conversation that doesn’t have a fast or easy conclusion, you’re not being old-fashioned. You’re future-proofing your child.

Strong interpersonal skills, in the age of AI, aren’t outdated. They’re a superpower.

What Matters Most

In my decades of research, motherhood, and medicine, I’ve come to understand what truly weighs on parents. The physical demands are grueling, sure. The sleepless nights, the constant vigilance, the sheer length of the to-do list. But somehow, we power through those.

What keeps us awake isn’t the work. It’s the uncertainty. Am I doing enough? Am I missing something important? Am I pushing too hard? Am I pushing hard enough?

That anxiety is understandable. Every day, we’re shaping a human brain, helping to build neural connections that last a lifetime. And the roadmap is more guesswork than guidance. Cultural expectations add another layer of complexity. Developmental timelines, while useful, can cause even more stress.

Let me assure you: What matters most isn’t whether you’re getting it perfectly right. What matters is whether you’re showing up, again and again, with presence and care. Whether you’re willing to repair what ruptures. Persistence, not perfection, is what children need from us.

My children are grown now; my first-born is getting married this fall! But I remember those early, exhausted days like they were yesterday. Parenting young children can feel like being in the middle of a storm with no forecast and no shelter.

I want to say this plainly, to every parent reading this: You do not need to be mistake-free. You need to be present, and honest, and willing to come back after the hard moments. You need to be human.

And the nights that will never end, do end. The seasons that feel permanent do turn out to be temporary.

In the meantime, your children don’t need you to be a human Alexa. The children who will thrive in the age of AI won’t be raised by the most optimized parents. They’ll be raised by the most connected ones. The ones who showed them, through

years of ordinary and imperfect days, what it looks like to love someone through difficulty, to fail and try again, to be genuinely, irreducibly themselves.

That’s not a consolation prize. That’s the whole point.

Dana Suskind, MD, is Founder and Co-Director of the TMW Center for Early Learning + Public Health, Founding Director of the Pediatric Cochlear Implant Program, and Professor of Surgery, Pediatrics, and Public Policy at the University of Chicago. Her book, “Human Raised: Nurturing Connection, Curiosity and Lifelong Learning in the Age of AI” (Penguin) will be released TODAY, July 14.

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