What an AI Companion Cheats From Your Teen - Bravester
Adolescence and early adulthood are meant to be practice years. They are the years when young people learn to read body language, interpret nuance, apologize without collapsing into shame, forgive without losing boundaries, and discern when to compromise versus when to stand their ground. This learning does not happen through certainty; it happens through failure and discomfort. This is why the laws of the land protect minors.
Teens misread cues. They say the wrong thing. They feel misunderstood. They fall out and make up. They wrestle with moral dilemmas and discover—slowly and with imperfect progress—what they believe is right and wrong. Each mistake strengthens a psychological muscle: judgment, empathy, self-regulation, resilience. These skills cannot be downloaded. They must be lived into. These skills also shouldn’t be drugged.
All this awkward learning must be lived into.
AI companions do not and cannot ever offer that.
At precisely the age when young adults need to be learning to read body language, interpret nuance, apologize, forgive, and figure out when to stand their ground, an astonishing amount of this foundational emotional work is now being subcontracted to a machine. This machine cannot offer what human interaction and imperfect progress can offer. This machine cheats our teens of life skills.
Teens are not only using AI to help them express themselves and help understand those around them. Many are also using it to tell them what to do and what to think.
This means that you, parent, youth pastor, teacher, important adult, are now not trustworthy because you are emotional. AI sees clearly, you are clouded by bias. AIs are neutral arbiters–less judgmental than you, more patient than you, more reliable (they think) than friends. And more available than you. AI is always there, all knowing and wise, a source of certainty in a chaotic world.
Certainty in a chaotic world is what our young adults need. But not from AI. They need it from people in their lives who can morally judge them, smile and frown at them, look deep into their eyes, and also disappoint them. (Did you just remember some of the painful lessons and beautiful moments from your young adult years?)
If the “right” answer comes from the AI companion, then the young person’s inner world becomes suspect. Confusion, doubt, and emotional complexity—-all things normal-—are treated as errors to be corrected rather than signals to be understood and grow through.
Over time, this trains our young adults to defer rather than decide.
Oh. Oh.
In this framework, and without realizing it, the AI companion becomes the authority. The young person becomes the problem to be solved by a machine. The work of adolescent development is gone. The sense of mattering is gone.
Mattering requires agency. It requires the belief that my choices shape outcomes and my presence affect others. I matter to someone and my life affects many someones. When a machine is consistently consulted to resolve conflict, make moral judgments, or interpret relationships, teens are subtly taught that their own discernment is insufficient.
How did we all learn discernment? Through lots of awkwardness. Lots of mistakes, some large regrets. This was and is lots of imperfect progress. Your teen needs to fail.
When young adults begin to believe that the “right” answer is simply the one the AI companion provides, they risk bypassing the slow, internal process of moral reasoning. They are no longer discovering what they believe; they are receiving instructions.
There’s more.
The output of AI companions cannot be trusted. Yes, AI hallucinates and lacks moral accountability. This increasing reliance on it reveals a troubling naivety about what AI is and is not. AI does not live with consequences. It does not risk rejection. It does not bear responsibility for broken trust or repaired relationships.
The discomfort of adolescence—-awkwardness, uncertainty, emotional intensity—-is not a design flaw. It is the classroom. These experiences teach teens that they can survive relational breakups, learn from failure, and grow in wisdom. This is the very reason why I was a youth pastor for 39 years and now am pastoring a church to reach young people. This is my favorite part of life that I get to walk human souls through again and again and again. Teens discover that God loves them because this sense of mattering matters so much. This is the peak time of discovery.
AI companions remove the risk, but they also remove the reward.
What did you learn about yourself when your crush entered the classroom? What did you body tell you? What did your friends tell you? What did your awkwardness teach you? Our young people need to experience this and more.
Another cause for concern is that 24% of teens said they’ve shared personal information with AI companions. Young adults might not realize that when they share things such as their personal struggles with an AI companion, they’re sharing that data with companies, not friends. Source.
Teens do not need perfectly phrased responses or instant clarity. They need spaces where their voice matters, where mistakes are survivable, and where they are trusted to grow. They need adults who will tolerate their messiness and awkwardness rather than replace it with efficiency. They need relationships that require presence, patience, and repair.
And mattering—real mattering—is something no machine can give.
A Gen Zer wrote this brilliant essay and said this:
“Parenting is difficult, and there didn’t seem to be much harm in giving the kid a phone to calm them down for an hour—enough time for a shower and a nap. But if parents weren’t teaching us strong morals and we didn’t have a religious community, the internet raised us, and it raised us without manners.” –Clare Ashcroft, https://www.persuasion.community/p/gen-z-has-too-much-freedom
Is this a young person asking us emotional adults in their lives for help? I believe so. I am responding in every way possible. I am asking you to respond too.
One more powerful quote to close on. This one comes from a parent of one of the victims of the Anunciation School shooting in Minneapolis:
“This is the pattern we refuse to name. Guns make headlines. Policy divides us. But until we talk honestly about what it means to raise children who no longer feel real, who are taught to avoid discomfort, who don’t know truth, and who believe shame cannot be survived, we will keep rushing past grief into shallow debates that never heal us. What our children need most is not endless escape, but a shared reality strong enough to anchor them when their world feels unstable.” — Cally Proctor, parent of a child at Annunciation Catholic School https://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-shooting-childhood-mental-health/601478748
Let us—you and me—anchor our young people…now.
Read also: Seeking Mattering in a World Full of AI
