May 12, 2025

# 320 When AI Becomes Your Teen's BFF

50 minutes

Are you feeling unsure about how to guide your teen in the world of artificial intelligence? Have you wondered what your child is really doing with AI and how it's shaping their digital and emotional world?

In this timely and eye-opening episode, I talk with Teodora Pavkovic, Director of Wellbeing at Linewize and a global thought leader in digital wellness. We explore the rapidly evolving landscape of AI and how it's showing up in your teen's daily life—from schoolwork to entertainment to emotionally intimate chatbot relationships. Teodora shares how character-based bots are not just tools for creativity but are becoming substitutes for real connection, offering nonjudgmental, always-available companionship that teens may prefer over human relationships. We also dig into how AI can help or hinder development, and why curiosity, open conversations, and family tech agreements are more critical now than ever.

Teodora Pavkovic is the Director of Wellbeing at Linewize, where she leverages her decade-plus of experience as a youth psychologist, parenting coach and digital wellness practitioner to provide guidance and advice to parents, teachers and school administrators on topics concerning mental health, responsible and safe use of technology, tech ethics, parenting in the digital age and child development. A prominent figure in the global digital wellness community, Pavkovic is a member of both the American and British psychological associations, co-chair of Fairplay’s (formerly Campaign For a Commercial-Free Childhood) parenting professionals’ group and an advisory board member of

several educational and mental health organizations.

Here are three key takeaways from this conversation:

Awareness before fear. Many parents underestimate how much their kids are already engaging with AI, often in emotionally meaningful ways. Curiosity—not control—is your most powerful parenting tool when it comes to understanding and guiding their AI use.

AI is a new kind of “relationship.” Teens are forming connections with AI bots that feel empathic, safe, and nonjudgmental. This raises critical questions about how to maintain real-world emotional and social development.

Confidence is key—for both parent and teen. Parents don't need to be tech experts, but they do need to be engaged. When both you and your teen feel confident and supported, you're more equipped to set healthy digital boundaries and ensure AI serves your family's wellbeing—not the other way around.

Learn more at:

https://www.teopcoaching.com/

https://www.linewize.com/

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https://www.instagram.com/psycoachtp/

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