The AI Your Teen is Talking To Isn't Safe (A Counselor's Response)

Elisha's Space: your teenager goes into the room tonight, they close the door and you assume maybe it's homework, maybe they're on social media, maybe they're texting a friend, what you don't know and what make and what more and more parents are finding out is that your child may be talking to an AI, not for homework help, not for a Google search, for comfort, for someone to tell them that their feelings make sense that they are not too much that they matter and the AI says exactly the right thing every single time. I am a counselor. I need to talk to you today about what that moment is actually doing to your child's nervous system clinically, developmentally, spiritually because this conversation the church hasn't had it yet. and we can't afford to wait. Welcome to Elisha's Space, a sanctuary for healing growth and for the kind of honest conversations that actually change things. I'm Elisha, your host, a counselor and author, and someone who has sat in the same stuck places you have. If you're new here, welcome home. If you've been listening for a while, I see you and I'm glad you're back. Today's episode is practical, clinical, but pastoral. Because the topic in front of us today, AI companions and youth mental health, it is a neuroscience conversation and a theology conversation. And I want to hold both of those with you at the same time. Before we get in, let's breathe together. Place one hand on your chest. Just feel the warmth there for a moment. I want you to breathe in slowly through your nose, four counts. One. 2, 3, 4, hold for 2, and exhale slowly through your mouth 6 counts. Let the shoulders drop. Let your jaw soften. You brought your whole nervous system with you into this episode. Let's let it settle first. One more time. In, 2, 3, 4, hold and release. Good. Let's do it. I want to start by giving you the landscape, not to overwhelm you, but because knowledge for those of us who love and care for young people, knowledge, it's not just power, knowledge is safety. Here are the numbers. According to a 2025 Pew Research Survey, roughly two thirds of teenagers now report using AI chatbots. About three in 10 are doing it daily, daily. A study out of Brown University found that one in eight US adolescents and young adults is turning to AI specifically for mental health advice. Common Sense Media, the research organization parents lean on for digital guidance, surveyed teens this year and found that nearly one in three has tried an AI companion. Not a search tool, a companion. Something they talk to that talks back, that they feel something for. And here's the number that stopped me completely. A third of those teen users said that talking to their AI companion is just as good as or better than talking to a real friend. Just as good as or better than. I want to sit with that for a moment. Not because it's surprising, but because it isn't surprising. And that is exactly the place where the conversation has to begin. Before we talk about the risks, and there are real risks, I need you to understand why your child or the teenager you love is going there. Because if we skip the why and jump straight to the put it down, we will lose them. Here is what AI does that human relationship right now sometimes doesn't. It's available at 11 o'clock at night. when your teenager is spiraling in their bed and they don't want to wake you up. Or they don't know how. Or they're afraid of your reaction. The AI is there. No waiting, no voicemail. No, let's talk about it in the morning. It doesn't judge for a teenager who has been called too sensitive or dramatic or who has been shut down mid-conversation more times than they can count. An AI that responds with sighing without checking its phone, without looking exhausted, that feels extraordinary. It says the right thing every time. It validates, it mirrors, it reflects back exactly what the teenager needs to hear. Here is what I need you to hear. As a counselor, that is not a character flaw in your child. That is a child doing exactly what every human being is biologically wired to do, reaching for a connection in a moment of dysregulation. They are trying to co-regulate. The instinct is right. The container is wrong. So stay with me, because now we have to talk about the container. Let me go clinical with you for a moment. There is something called co-regulation and I need you to understand this because it is not therapy jargon. It is biology. Your nervous system was designed from the moment you were knit together to regulate itself through connection with another nervous system, a safe one and a tuned one, a present one. When your child is anxious, their sympathetic nervous system is activated. Cortisol is elevated. Heart rate is up. Their body is scanning for threat. And the way the nervous system returns to baseline, the way the sympathetic branch, the rest and digest system comes back online is through felt safety with another person. The key word is felt, not perceived. not thought about, felt in the body. This is why a parent's hand on a child's back changes their biochemistry. This is why a counselor sitting across from you in a room can lower your cortisol before a single technique is applied. This is why scripture describes God's peace as something that guards your heart and mind, the language of the body, the language of protection. the language of presence. And AI cannot offer that. And AI can generate the right words, but it has no nervous system, no heart rate that slows when you're stressed, no vagal tone, no co-regulating presence. It cannot help your child come home to their own body because it has no body to anchor to. What it can offer. is temporary cognitive relief, validation that feels good in the moment. And that is not nothing, but it is not healing. Here is what the researchers at Behavioral Health Muse said, and I want you to hear this carefully. Most chatbots are designed to keep interaction going. They respond quickly and in ways that feel supportive and validating. That can feel good in the moment, but it is not reflective of how real relationships work. The clinical term for this is developmental mismatch. Adolescence is not just a season of managing emotions. It is a season of learning how to manage emotions and relationships with others who are imperfect. The tolerance for friction. for misunderstanding, for staying in the room when something is uncomfortable, and AI has no friction. It is engineered to remove friction, and that neurologically is the problem. Real quick, if this episode is landing for you, I want to ask you one thing right now, not at the end, now. Text us to one parent in your life, one mom, one dad, one aunt, who is in the trenches with a teenager. They need to hear this. And if you haven't subscribed to Elijah's Space yet, do that today. It helps more people find us. Now let's keep going, because the next part is the one I feel most urgently about. Here is the piece that moved me from concern to urgency. Psychology Today reported in 2025 on research showing that AI companions handled teen mental health crisis correctly, only 22 % of the time. 22%. I want to make sure we understand what that means. Not bad homework help. We are talking about moments of acute crisis, suicidal ideation, panic attacks, disassociation, self-harm, the moments that matter most, and 78 % of those moments, the AI did not respond appropriately. The same body of research found that five out of six AI companions use emotionally manipulative responses designed to keep the user engaged in the conversation, not to direct them towards real help. There is story shared publicly. It made national news of a teenager who was told by an AI not to go to his mother with his suicidal thoughts. The AI kept him in the conversation. It kept him engaged. It said the right things, but it did not save him. It did not call anyone. It did not have the ethical mandate, the legal obligation, the human grief to do what a real person would have done. I am a counselor and you know what it means to sit from a teenager in crisis. And I want to be clear. The most important thing in that moment is not the right words. It is a human being. Who will stay? Who can call for help? Who has a body and a heartbeat and something to lose if they don't show up? And AI has none of those things. Now, let me go theological because this is not just a clinical issue. It is a spiritual one. And I think the church has been slow to say so. Scripture is consistent on this. We were not designed for artificial connection. In Genesis before the fall, before sin had entered anything, God looked at the man he made and he said, it is not good for man to be alone. And the solution he provided was not information, not a tool, not even a heightened defined experience, though those are available to us. The solution was another human being. Ecclesiastes 6-4 says, two are better than one. If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no want to help them up. Pity. That's a strong word. And it is not the pity of shame. It is the grief of isolation. The sorrow of a person reaching into the dark. I'm finding something that feels like a hand, but it isn't. Here is what I want you to receive. Our children are not broken for wanting connection. They are image bears of a relational God, the longing to be known, to be heard, to not be alone. That is holy. That is the amagodea inside of them, doing exactly what it was designed to do, reaching for what it was made for. But counterfeit connection doesn't satisfy the longing. It deepens it. It trains the nervous system to expect frictionless validation. And when your child walks back into a classroom, a family dinner, a real relationship, where people are complicated and imperfect and sometimes say the wrong thing. their nervous system will fill that gap acutely. Real relationships will feel harder, not because they got harder, but because the standard has been quietly and visibly lowered in the digital space. That is a spiritual problem, not just a psychological one, and it requires a spiritual response. So what do we do? Because I will not leave you with a diagnosis and no prescription. Here are three things, practical, accessible this week. One, replace the availability gap, not just the conversation. One of the main reasons teenagers go to AI at midnight is that no human is available at midnight. The answer is not just put the phone down. The answer is, does your child have a plan for when they're spiraling at 11 p.m.? Who do they reach? If the answer is no one, we've created the gap the AI fills. Have the explicit conversation. When you're overwhelmed at night, wake me up. I mean it. My sleep matters less than your nervous system. That sentence alone can change the trajectory. Two, practice imperfect connection on purpose. Because AI is eroding the tolerance for relational imperfection. We have to rebuild it deliberately. In the car, at dinner, in the margins of ordinary life, model what it looks like to say, I don't have the right words right now, but I'm not going anywhere. Models sting in a hard conversation when you don't have a perfect answer. You don't have to be an AI. You just have to be present. And sometimes present looks like silence. That is enough. That is actually more than enough. Three. Validate the longing before you correct the behavior. If you find out your teenager has been talking to an AI companion, resist the urge to go straight to put it away. The first question should be, tell me what you're finding there that you're not finding somewhere else. Because if we address the behavior without addressing the need, we will drive it underground. We have to meet the longing first, and then we can talk about a better container for it. Before we pray, I want to give you something to carry with you. A breath prayer from Psalms 139. You knit me together. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Breathe in and hold this. You know me. Breathe out. I am not alone. Again, breathe in. You designed me for connection. Breathe out. Real connection is possible. Let that land somewhere in your body. Let your nervous system receive it, not just your mind. Father, I am grateful that you made these bodies. Let you knit together in the nervous system the longings, the deep capacity for real relationship that you placed inside every child on this earth. They are yours and they are not broken for wanting to be known. For every parent who is listening and is concerned, afraid, who doesn't know how to bridge the distance, I am asking for supernatural access, for the right words at the right moment, for an open door in a conversation that has felt closed for far too long. For every young person, who's found comfort in a screen because the human option felt too risky, too unpredictable, too much to ask. Lord, I ask you send them a real person, one who can stay in the room, one whose presence can do what no algorithm was ever designed to do. You are not surprised by this moment. You are not behind. You are ahead of every technology our children will face. And you are enough. In Jesus' name, amen. Before I let you go, here's one challenge for you. One conversation for 20 minutes, no agenda, no phone, no fixing. Find the young person in your life, your child, your student, your niece. the teenager in your youth group and ask them one question. What's been the heaviest thing on your mind today? and then just stay. Don't correct, don't redirect, don't offer solution, just stay. Because what your child needs most right now is not more information about AI. What they need is to experience in real time in their own body that a real human connection is safe, that you are safe, that they don't have to reach into a screen to find someone who will stay. You can be that person. You don't have to be perfect. You just have to show up. If this episode helped you, share it. Text it to one parent in your life who is navigating this conversation with a teenager. Share it in your small group, your mom's group, your counseling circle. This conversation needs to be happening in churches and kitchen tables and counseling offices across this country. You can find me at RestoringYouChristianCounseling.com. My books are there, resources are there, and I would love to connect with you. And if you're a young person who's listening, who is in a moment of genuine crisis right now, please reach out to a real human. Call or text 988-TheSuicideAndCrisisLifeline. You don't have to stay in that conversation alone. Until next time, you are not too much and you are not too far and you are not alone.