What to do when another parent uses AI to make images or videos of your child
The first time I saw it, I was standing in the school parking lot, waiting for the afternoon pickup line to move. A mom two cars ahead had posted in the class group chat a short video of her daughter and mine playing in the sprinkler. Except we hadn’t been to her house in months. The water was pixel-perfect, the laughter was convincing, and both girls were wearing swimsuits I’d never seen before. It took me a full minute to realize it was generated. She had captioned it, “Summer flashback!” but it wasn’t a flashback. It had never happened.
I didn’t know what to say. We were friendly, not close. Our kids were in the same third-grade class. She was the kind of parent who organized the Halloween parade and remembered everyone’s allergies. I wasn’t ready to accuse her of anything. But I also couldn’t unsee it.
That night, I showed my husband. He shrugged. “It’s just a fun summer video,” he said. “They’re playing. What’s the harm?”
I get that response. It’s the same one I would have had two years ago. But something about seeing my daughter’s face mapped onto a scenario that didn’t exist made my stomach turn. It wasn’t the content itself—it was that nobody asked. Nobody checked in. Another adult had taken my child’s likeness, placed her in an invented situation, and shared it with a few dozen families without a second thought.
I started asking around quietly. It turned out several kids in the class had been “featured” in these little AI creations. One dad had made a birthday card with a cartoon version of the whole class on a rocket ship. Another had turned a group photo into a zombie-themed picture for a Halloween party invite. Most of these were harmless, even cute. But a few, like the sprinkler video, were harder to read. They were realistic enough that kids themselves couldn’t always tell the difference.
My daughter asked me why I looked upset that evening. I told her I was just tired. But I realized I needed to say something real, both to her and to the other parents, without making a scene.
The tricky part is that this is genuinely new territory. There aren’t clear social rules yet. You can’t say “remember when nobody had phones” because everyone does. You can’t say “that’s not okay” because the other parent genuinely doesn’t see a problem. And you can’t ignore it because the kids are starting to believe things that never happened.
After a few days, I reached out to the mom directly. Not through the group chat, but face to face, after drop-off. I said, “Hey, I saw the video you made with the girls. It was really creative, but I felt a little funny that no one ran it by me first.” I tried to keep my voice neutral, like I was asking about a potluck dish.
She looked surprised. Then a little embarrassed. “Oh, I never thought about that,” she said. “It’s just an app. My daughter loves it.” She wasn’t being cruel. She just hadn’t considered the difference between a real photo and a generated one. To her, both were just images on a screen.
That conversation opened a longer exchange. She showed me the app she was using, how it took a few seconds, how she didn’t even think of it as “creating” something. It was just cleanup, like adding a filter or cropping a photo. But once I explained how it felt to have my child’s face placed into a fake scene, she got it. She apologized and asked if I wanted her to take it down. I said yes, and she did.
But I knew not every parent would respond that way. So I started thinking about what I actually needed to protect my kid, and what I could teach her.
The first thing I did was talk to the teacher. Not to complain, but to ask how the school was handling AI use in classrooms and among parents. She told me they were still figuring it out. There was no policy yet. But she said the topic had come up at a staff meeting, which was something. We both agreed that the rules for kids using AI in homework were clearer than the unwritten rules for adults.
I also started being more upfront with the other parents I knew. Whenever a group photo was shared, I’d say, “Just checking—does this stay as a regular photo, or does it get edited with an app?” It felt awkward at first, but it got easier. Most people were fine with it. A few rolled their eyes. One dad said I was “overthinking it.” But I noticed he started asking before he added anyone’s kid to a meme, which was all I really wanted.
At home, I had a simpler conversation with my daughter. I kept it short and practical. I told her that sometimes people use computers to make pictures or videos that look real but aren’t. I showed her a few examples, including the sprinkler video. She studied it for a long time. Then she said, “So I was never there?” And I said, “No, honey, you weren’t.” She didn’t seem upset, just curious. Then she asked if she could use the app to make herself flying. I laughed and said maybe, if we talked about it first.
That last part matters. Kids need the language to understand what’s real and what’s generated, not because they’ll be scared, but because they’ll have to navigate a world where it’s easy to fake things. A nine-year-old doesn’t need a lecture on deepfakes. She needs to know that if she sees herself somewhere strange, she can ask an adult what happened. She needs to know that her face belongs to her, and people don’t get to use it without permission.
The school eventually put a small note in the weekly newsletter. It wasn’t a rule, just a reminder: “Families are reminded to ask before sharing images of other children, including edited or AI-enhanced images.” It was softer than I would have liked, but it got the point across. The class group chat went quiet about apps for a while.
Months later, the same mom sent me a photo she wanted to include in a goodbye card for a teacher who was moving. It was a regular picture from the holiday party, no alterations. She wrote privately, “Is this okay to share?” I said yes. It was a small gesture, but it felt like progress.
I still don’t have a foolproof answer. The technology keeps moving faster than anyone’s comfort level. I’ve told my daughter to come to me if she ever sees anything made of her face that she doesn’t recognize, and I’ve told the other parents I’d rather they ask first, even if it’s annoying. That’s about all I can do right now. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s honest. And it keeps the conversation open, which is the best I can hope for while everyone else is still figuring this out too.
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