Chat Boxes Don’t Groom, Values Do: How to Align with Truth to Raise Value-Centered and Safe Children
Understanding Children’s Interaction with Chat Boxes and Social Media
Chat Boxes Don’t Groom, Values Do: How to Align with Truth to Raise Value-Centered and Safe Children …Understanding Children’s Interaction with Chat Boxes and Social Media
If you have followed my work or this column for a while, it will no longer be news to you that I am a 55-year-old man raising my first son, my first child, who is now four years old, in my twilight. Because of the uniqueness of where I am in life, I think a lot about legacy, about what I can deposit in him for his eternal value, his relevance in a world that grows more complex and competitive by the day, and his understanding of values as the foundation of all pursuits.
It is with these thoughts at the back of my mind that I address what has been weighing heavily on my heart. I am concerned about the kind of world in which I am raising my son, and about the narratives that shape it. Because no matter what I teach him, the sanitization of the world around him, to the best of my ability, remains crucial.
This reflection is born not of fear, but of responsibility. It is in my enlightened self-interest to think deeply about the world that influences him, and to speak honestly about it. This is not judgment. It is reflection, mine and I believe every parent must have theirs.
There’s something that has been on my mind, and I just want to pour it out.
Lately, I’ve heard chat boxes being accused of grooming, manipulating, seducing, and corrupting children. But I keep asking myself, is that even possible? Can a device without a mind, without consciousness, without emotion, groom anyone? Grooming is not accidental; it is an intentional, calculated act by a person who seeks to gain another’s trust to exploit it. It involves will, desire, and deceit, none of which a program possesses.
A chat box responds to prompts. It mirrors what it is fed. It generates output within parameters set by human hands. It has no will of its own. So when we claim that “chat boxes groom children,” are we not stretching morality beyond reason? Can we, in good conscience, equate a programmed response with predatory intent?
Some say that a chat box in the hands of a child is like a predator walking into your home. But does that comparison make sense? How does a tool become a predator unless we hand it the keys and leave the child unattended? The greater danger, it seems, is not in the technology but in our willingness to abdicate our responsibility, to surrender vigilance to algorithms and moral guidance to machines.
When we accept such arguments uncritically, we concede a frightening belief: that chat boxes are more powerful than parents, schools, or teachers; that they have more influence than the very people charged with nurturing the next generation. That is a moral and logical tragedy.
Let me be clear: I am not saying that chat boxes, platforms, or content creators should not be regulated to be more humane. They should. Regulation is a legitimate area of public concern and advocacy. But we must never forget, advocacy does not raise children; values do.
If our advocacy never sees the light of day, shall we sit idle and become lame ducks? No. There is always something we can do. We must raise the power of value. We must equip our children to live discerningly in a complicated world.
We are not to admit evil, but we must also understand that not everything is evil in itself. Chat boxes are not inherently evil. Guns are not inherently evil. Cars are not inherently evil. These things become destructive only through the values, or lack thereof, of those who use them. Evil does not reside in the instrument but in the intent.
That is why I say: we must coexist in this world by raising the power of value. Advocacy can help regulate systems, but only values can regulate souls. Our task as parents is not to wait for perfect systems but to raise circumspect children, who can navigate imperfection without being consumed by it.
Even with human predators, those capable of intention and evil, can we say they are more powerful than parents? Does evil truly have what it takes to triumph over good?
The Book of Romans 6:16 says, “To whom you give yourself to obey, that is your master.” Predators, social media, even chat boxes, these things become masters only to the extent that we hand them authority. They have no inherent power except what we yield to them.
This is what burdens me as a man raising a child in his twilight years. I am not afraid of machines. I am concerned about the narrative of powerlessness we are handing to parents, the idea that we are helpless before technology or evil.
We must remember: the power lies with us. Not in perfection, but in circumspection. Not in control, but in conscious, value-driven parenting.
We live in an imperfect world. There is robbery, gun violence, and deceit. Yet we do not withdraw our children from it. We equip them with wisdom, vigilance, and virtue. The world will not grow safer by our retreat; it grows safer when we raise children whose values can withstand it.
As a father in my twilight, raising a four-year-old, I think deeply about this. The only inheritance I can truly give my son is value, not wealth, not fear, but the strength of mind and heart that resists manipulation. The stability of his soul depends not on the perfection of his environment but on the principles engraved in his conscience.
So when I hear that chat boxes are “grooming” children, I ask: who is truly grooming whom? Is it the machine, or the culture of irresponsibility teaching us to surrender our place?
This is not judgment. It is reflection. The reflection of a man determined to hold the line between influence and authority, between fear and formation, between convenience and conviction. Because if we lose that line, we lose our precious children, not to machines, but to the silence of our own abdication.
