The line isn't where most parents think it is
"Don't use AI, that's cheating" is easy to say and almost impossible to enforce. It also isn't quite true, which your teenager will work out faster than you'd like.
The useful version is more specific, and once you have it, the conversation gets a lot easier.
New Zealand has actually drawn a line, and most parents haven't seen it
For NCEA external assessments, generative AI is not permitted. That's the Ministry of Education's position and it isn't ambiguous.
For internal assessment, it's different. Any school with consent to assess must have an authenticity policy covering acceptable AI use. Which means the rule your child is actually subject to is set by their school, not by you and not by whatever they read online.
So the first job isn't a rule. It's a question: what does our school's policy say? Most parents have never asked. Ask.
The test that works at every age
One question, and it scales from Year 4 to Year 13:
Did the AI do the thinking, or did it help you think?
That's it. Everything below is just that question applied.
Four ways to use it that are genuinely fine
- "Explain this to me like I'm 12." Reframing a concept they're stuck on. This is tutoring.
- "Quiz me on this topic." Active recall, which is one of the few study techniques that reliably works.
- "I've written this. What have I missed?" Note the wording. Not "rewrite this."
- "Give me three ways to approach this, I'll pick one." Options, then their judgement.
Four that aren't
- "Write my essay on..."
- "Summarise this book so I don't have to read it"
- "Do these maths problems and show the working"
- "Rewrite this so it sounds like me"
The pattern is obvious once you see it. The first four leave the thinking with your child. The second four move it somewhere else.
The one habit worth teaching
Keep the receipts.
If they used AI, they should be able to say how. What they asked, what came back, what they did with it. A kid who can explain their process has learned something. A kid who can't, hasn't.
This also happens to be exactly what NZQA recommends teachers look for: milestone check ins, observable progress, source acknowledgement. You're not inventing a standard here, you're practising the one that already exists.
Say this, not that
Instead of "you're not allowed to use AI", which invites secrecy, try:
"Use it, but you have to be able to explain how you used it, and I'll ask."
One version makes you the enforcer they hide from. The other makes you the person they show their working to. The second one keeps working when they're 17.
The uncomfortable part
Roughly 60% of young New Zealanders already use AI for schoolwork. If your child is in secondary school, the realistic question was never whether they'd use it. It's whether they'd learn to use it well, and who was going to teach them that.
Right now, mostly nobody is.
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