Guides for parents · Kids and AI
How kids can write good prompts
A prompt is how you tell an AI what you want. Clear words get better results, and learning to describe an idea well is a skill kids will use in writing, coding and every job they'll ever have.
The recipe
- Say what to change. The hero, the rocks, the score, the sky. Name the thing.
- Say how. Bigger, faster, purple, worth 5 points, only in round 3. Details are what make it yours.
- One change at a time. Small steps are easy to check, and easy to undo if you don't like them.
- Play it and check. Did it do what you meant? If not, say what happened and what you wanted instead.
Good, better, best
| Good | Better | Best |
|---|---|---|
| change the hero | make the hero a dragon | make the hero a small purple dragon that flaps when you tap |
| make it harder | make the rocks faster | make the rocks fall a little faster every round, and give me three lives |
| add stuff | add stars | add gold stars worth 5 points that sparkle when you catch them |
| fix it | the score is broken | the score doesn't go back to 0 when I start again |
When it doesn't work
Don't start over. Describe what you saw and what you expected: "the dragon goes off the side of the screen, I want it to stop at the edge". That's exactly how grown-up engineers report a bug, and it's how the AI helper finds the problem fastest.
Shortcuts that teach
In our builder, kids can type shortcuts like /harder, /sounds or /fixbug. Each one is a well-written prompt they can read and learn from, and each one costs fewer sparks than starting from scratch.
What never goes in a prompt
- Full names, schools, addresses, phone numbers or passwords.
- Real people or famous characters. Inventing your own is more fun anyway: nobody else has a purple dragon who loves pancakes.
- Anything you wouldn't want to show your teacher.
Our builder removes personal details automatically, and parents can add their own list of words the helper won't accept. That's part of the lesson too: AI tools have rules, and good prompts work within them.