# Help! My Child is Dating a Flirty AI Chatbot!

An episode of [Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1082244480), 9 Aug 2026, 16 min.

Audio: https://mgln.ai/e/187/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/fa326977-3de5-4283-9b8b-af3500c58607/b69b2795-5503-4de1-ac91-af460017906e/ce509dc4-5afe-40c9-8c21-b49001866c63/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=a05f1702-0c0e-4b0f-8014-af460017907c

Your child could be having deeply personal, romantic conversations tonight and not with another teenager. A new wave of AI companion apps is attracting young people by offering constant attention, endless validation and conversations that never end. They remember everything, say exactly what users want to hear and create the illusion of a real relationship. In this episode, Justin and Kylie explain why these chatbots are so appealing, why traditional parental controls don't stop them, and how to start the conversation without shame, panic or punishment. If your child has access to a smartphone, this is one conversation you can't afford to skip. KEY POINTS • The three AI companion apps every parent should know about. • Why AI relationships feel safer and easier than real friendships for many teens. • How these apps use loneliness, curiosity and validation to keep young people engaged. • Why confiscating devices often drives the behaviour underground. • Practical conversation starters that build trust instead of fear. • The simple reminder every child needs to hear: a bot is a what, not a who. • Why strong real world relationships are still the best protection. QUOTE OF THE EPISODE "A bot is not a who. A bot is a what." RESOURCES MENTIONED • Happy Families Tweens, Teens and Screens presentation • Happy Families website ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS • Ask your child what they already know about AI companion apps. • Stay calm if they admit they've used one. Focus on listening before reacting. • Talk about why these apps feel appealing instead of only discussing the risks. • Create a clear family agreement around AI companions and device use. • Keep phones and tablets out of bedrooms overnight. • Help your child build stronger friendships and real life connections where they feel seen, valued and understood. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:05] Speaker 1: Hello, this is the Happy Families podcast, so glad to
[0:09] Speaker 1: have you along for another week. Monday morning, and here
[0:12] Speaker 1: we go with some news that every parent needs to know,
[0:16] Speaker 1: but it could be challenging to hear right now. Today tonight,
[0:19] Speaker 1: there are going to be Australian teenagers who are in
[0:21] Speaker 1: their bedrooms having very romantic and explicit conversations, not with
[0:28] Speaker 1: another teenager, which we'd probably worry about but be okay
[0:33] Speaker 1: with so long as they're talking to us as well.
[0:35] Speaker 1: They're going to be having these conversations with an aichatbot
[0:39] Speaker 1: that's been designed to flirt back, to escalate, and to
[0:45] Speaker 1: never say no. The apps call themselves Free, Private and Unrestricted.
[0:53] Speaker 1: Today the three apps every parent needs to know by name,
[0:57] Speaker 1: why your kids are drawn to them, and what to
[1:00] Speaker 1: actually do about it without losing your mind or your
[1:03] Speaker 1: relationship with your child. Stay with us, that's next. Hello,
[1:09] Speaker 1: Welcome to The Happy Family's podcast, Real Parenting Solutions every Day.
[1:12] Speaker 1: It's Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. We are parents of
[1:15] Speaker 1: six children. Justin and Kylie Colson Is. Our names are
[1:19] Speaker 1: our names? Kylie is our names or our our names?
[1:22] Speaker 1: Let's just get on with it. Let's not worry about
[1:23] Speaker 1: English grammar. You know where we're going, what we're doing here.
[1:26] Speaker 1: We've dealt with this sort of stuff with our kids
[1:28] Speaker 1: and being online for the duration of our parenting journey.
[1:31] Speaker 1: We've lived it and continue to live it, and Kylie,
[1:34] Speaker 1: it's a stress.
[1:36] Speaker 2: I'm trying to work out how as a parent you
[1:38] Speaker 2: can stare across everything but not lose your mind with
[1:42] Speaker 2: worry over all of the potential dangers that are out there.
[1:46] Speaker 2: Because today's conversation just leaves me, as a parent, feeling
[1:51] Speaker 2: completely ill equipped and wanting to kind of just hide
[1:56] Speaker 2: in a hole. To be honest, I think.
[1:57] Speaker 1: That explains one of the challenges that I have. So
[1:59] Speaker 1: one of my most commonly requested presentations at schools is
[2:04] Speaker 1: my tweens, teens and Screens presentation. Everyone's like, we need this,
[2:08] Speaker 1: the parents need it, the kids aren't doing well, the
[2:10] Speaker 1: kids are doing all the wrong stuff online. Like the teachers,
[2:12] Speaker 1: the principles, the well being officers, the counselors, the psychologists,
[2:16] Speaker 1: They're clamoring for me to do it. But every time
[2:18] Speaker 1: I'm asked to do it, it's the least well attended,
[2:21] Speaker 1: And I think it's because parents feel the way you
[2:23] Speaker 1: feel they're like either A the kids will be fine,
[2:25] Speaker 1: it's not that bad, or B how am I supposed
[2:27] Speaker 1: to stay on top of this? It's all just too much.
[2:30] Speaker 1: So today's conversations about AI, we've been talking about it
[2:33] Speaker 1: a fair bit on the pod lately. Let's crack on
[2:35] Speaker 1: because there's some new apps on the market that the
[2:38] Speaker 1: kids have discovered already that are not good for them.
[2:41] Speaker 3: Twenty percent of twelve to sixteen year old boys in
[2:44] Speaker 3: the UK know someone their age who's dating an AI chatbot,
[2:49] Speaker 3: and more than half say those relationships are easier than
[2:51] Speaker 3: human ones because they can control the conversation.
[2:55] Speaker 2: So what are these apps we're talking about? How bad
[2:59] Speaker 2: is it?
[2:59] Speaker 1: The first one is called polly Buzz, another one's called Talkie,
[3:04] Speaker 1: and the other one's called Linky, and they are just
[3:07] Speaker 1: surging in popularity. Even the names right like Polybus, TALKI, Linky.
[3:13] Speaker 1: They sound so nice, they sound so innocent, they sound
[3:15] Speaker 1: so easy to slide into. I would say, based on
[3:20] Speaker 1: what I've read, Pollybuzz is probably the worst offender. They're
[3:23] Speaker 1: marketed as companions and role play apps. Here's what I
[3:31] Speaker 1: would call it. I would call it functionally pornographic, especially
[3:34] Speaker 1: if you've got a child who's at any age, but
[3:37] Speaker 1: for a kid who's north of ten or eleven, they're
[3:40] Speaker 1: going to be able to have conversations with it that
[3:42] Speaker 1: I'm worried about.
[3:44] Speaker 2: What about age gating? I mean, don't we have legislation
[3:46] Speaker 2: to protect against this kind of access for children?
[3:52] Speaker 1: Yes? But no. And here's what I mean. So the
[3:55] Speaker 1: legislation that came in in I think it was March
[3:57] Speaker 1: this year about keeping kids off pornography is specifically oriented
[4:03] Speaker 1: or aimed at sites that promote pornographic content, sites that
[4:08] Speaker 1: have videos and imagery and content that is explicitly and
[4:12] Speaker 1: absolutely unquestionably pornographic. The age gate with these AI apps
[4:18] Speaker 1: is it's just a charade. It's theater. It's what age
[4:22] Speaker 1: gating has been for. Have a long until our new legislation.
[4:25] Speaker 1: Because if you can tick a box or typing your
[4:27] Speaker 1: birth date, make up a birthdate, whatever, nobody's checking. It's
[4:30] Speaker 1: like it's like your twelve year old going to the
[4:33] Speaker 1: bottle shop and there's somebody behind the cannon that says
[4:36] Speaker 1: are you eighteen? And then says, yeah, of course I am,
[4:39] Speaker 1: And they say, well you're can have whatever you want.
[4:41] Speaker 1: So the age gate laws that we've got in the
[4:44] Speaker 1: country are fine for pornography, although they're not doing the
[4:48] Speaker 1: perfect job. There's a lot of gaps, but it doesn't
[4:51] Speaker 1: cover this kind of content.
[4:53] Speaker 2: So this sounds like, while not necessarily images are being sent,
[4:59] Speaker 2: essentially this is sexting like this, this is where it leads.
[5:03] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really great way of saying it. I
[5:05] Speaker 1: would say pornography is content that is consumed, it's watched,
[5:08] Speaker 1: it's it's viewed. What the companion bots are are I
[5:14] Speaker 1: don't want to use the word relationship. It just feels
[5:17] Speaker 1: like because it's not a relationship. It's not it's a
[5:19] Speaker 1: bot for goodness sakes, But let me use the word anyway,
[5:21] Speaker 1: because it probably conveys it better than anything else. The
[5:23] Speaker 1: companion bots are a relationship that is going to respond
[5:26] Speaker 1: to your child, remember what your child has said, flatter
[5:28] Speaker 1: your child, escalate the things that your child is sharing.
[5:32] Speaker 1: It's it's interactive, whereas pornography is not. Well, I guess
[5:36] Speaker 1: what do you call only fans is interactive. But this
[5:38] Speaker 1: is at a totally different level. It's personalized. It's available
[5:41] Speaker 1: at two o'clock in the morning.
[5:43] Speaker 2: One of the biggest challenge we have is that our
[5:45] Speaker 2: kids are curious. They want to understanding, right, so to
[5:50] Speaker 2: have a place where they could go and ask all
[5:52] Speaker 2: of their bigger questions that feel scary to ask an adult.
[5:56] Speaker 1: Not even asking the questions get into a conversation. So
[6:00] Speaker 1: you've got the you've got the dope mean loop of
[6:03] Speaker 1: the explicit content, but you've also got the attachment loop
[6:07] Speaker 1: of the relationship. Even though it's with a bot, those
[6:10] Speaker 1: two things are working together and it creates this awful tension.
[6:14] Speaker 1: And that's why Teen's drawn in right. Vulnerability is curiosity.
[6:18] Speaker 1: I'm not going to be rejected because it's a bot.
[6:21] Speaker 2: So well that nothing I say is wrong.
[6:24] Speaker 1: Total control, secrecy, like the privacy around this. Yeah, and
[6:31] Speaker 1: I think the thing that I'm most concerned about is
[6:34] Speaker 1: the relationship aspect. Like the bot apps like it knows me.
[6:40] Speaker 1: If you jump on a chat GBT or claude, you
[6:43] Speaker 1: can put an idea in or ask a question and
[6:45] Speaker 1: it'll come back at you with something like this is
[6:47] Speaker 1: so you or I can tell how much this means
[6:50] Speaker 1: to you, And it's like, no, you can't, You're a bot.
[6:52] Speaker 1: You're not feeling anything you have. It infuriates me.
[6:55] Speaker 2: I know, as I've been going through this weight loss
[6:59] Speaker 2: journey and fitness and health, and as I've used Claude
[7:02] Speaker 2: to help me navigate my food selections, or it will
[7:07] Speaker 2: say to me, Kylie, you know you've spent the last
[7:09] Speaker 2: four months building you know, a really solid foundation.
[7:12] Speaker 1: It's so supportive, right, yeah.
[7:14] Speaker 2: And it remembers the things I said to it in January.
[7:17] Speaker 2: We're now in August. It's better than any friend I've got. Like,
[7:23] Speaker 2: you don't remember what I told you yesterday?
[7:25] Speaker 1: You said that You're right though, And I think the
[7:28] Speaker 1: other thing is like we've got the data that shows
[7:31] Speaker 1: up more and more of our kids are lonely, higher
[7:33] Speaker 1: numbers of loneliness amongst our adolescents than ever before. And
[7:35] Speaker 1: so in fact, we talked about it with Elizabeth Dunn
[7:37] Speaker 1: from British Columbia University Vancouver just the other day of
[7:41] Speaker 1: the pod ai companions and loneliness. All of the data
[7:45] Speaker 1: says that our kids are using ai bots more than ever.
[7:48] Speaker 1: So we need to talk about what to do about it.
[7:51] Speaker 1: That's next stay with us. It's the Happy Family's podcast.
[8:01] Speaker 2: Let's talk about the conversation we need to be having
[8:03] Speaker 2: with our kids because this is pretty scary.
[8:06] Speaker 1: We just have to have so many conversations with our
[8:08] Speaker 1: kids all the time, like seriously, and I feel like
[8:11] Speaker 1: this podcast.
[8:12] Speaker 2: So I'm back to my original thing.
[8:13] Speaker 1: I know, all right, before the conversation, let's just get
[8:16] Speaker 1: really clear, we're not going to confiscate anything. We don't
[8:18] Speaker 1: want to do that if our child. This is the
[8:20] Speaker 1: bit that is really hard, right as a parent, you
[8:23] Speaker 1: might not even know that it's happening. Your kids can
[8:25] Speaker 1: be on their screen, they're on their phone, they're on
[8:27] Speaker 1: their iPad, they're on the computer, and they're having these conversations,
[8:31] Speaker 1: these chats and you literally could not know that it's happening.
[8:35] Speaker 1: That's the hardest thing. So if your opener is I'm angry,
[8:40] Speaker 1: or if there's any rage or hostility or anything like that,
[8:45] Speaker 1: then your child is going it's going to go underground.
[8:47] Speaker 1: First step got to build trust. And the way you
[8:49] Speaker 1: build trust is we do this with our kids all
[8:52] Speaker 1: the time. We'll actually say to them before we even
[8:54] Speaker 1: have this conversation, kiddo, quick refresher, is what is trust?
[8:59] Speaker 1: And we get them to give us the definition. Trust
[9:01] Speaker 1: means you believe the other person has your best interest
[9:04] Speaker 1: at heart. And the kid saying that to us because
[9:06] Speaker 1: they know what's coming next. We say to them, do
[9:08] Speaker 1: you trust me? Do you believe that we have your
[9:10] Speaker 1: best interest at heart? And we're really big on emphasizing
[9:14] Speaker 1: there are eight billion people on this planet. There is
[9:17] Speaker 1: nobody on this planet that has your best interest at
[9:20] Speaker 1: heart like we do. Your grandparents, your siblings, nobody, nobody
[9:23] Speaker 1: has your best interests at heart like we do. We
[9:25] Speaker 1: love you absolutely, and that's why this conversation matters. Do
[9:28] Speaker 1: you trust us? Can we have a conversation where you
[9:31] Speaker 1: know that we're trying to be helpful? So that's where
[9:33] Speaker 1: I'd be starting.
[9:34] Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to push back a little bit on that.
[9:36] Speaker 2: I think that while that is a really important foundation
[9:39] Speaker 2: to the conversation, what I've actually found has been really
[9:42] Speaker 2: helpful as we've had to have some really tricky conversations
[9:45] Speaker 2: with the children, even just lately, is having a couple
[9:49] Speaker 2: of really positive conversations with them about tricky things, but
[9:55] Speaker 2: not so tricky that they're going to be feeling attacked.
[9:58] Speaker 2: You can actually have success in a conversation that is
[10:02] Speaker 2: a little bit tricky, but they're going to feel good
[10:04] Speaker 2: because they feel hurt and you've been able to work
[10:10] Speaker 2: with them on something.
[10:11] Speaker 1: So that's another way of building trust. That's another way
[10:13] Speaker 1: of saying, hey, there's trust in this relationship, let's continue
[10:16] Speaker 1: the good vibes.
[10:17] Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's really important that you actually go
[10:19] Speaker 2: through the motions of having some conversations that are big conversations,
[10:23] Speaker 2: but they don't feel so tricky in that moment because
[10:26] Speaker 2: you've already you've demonstrated with the easy stuff that we
[10:30] Speaker 2: can have good conversations and then move into a slightly
[10:35] Speaker 2: trickier conversation. You've kind of built trust in the moment
[10:38] Speaker 2: as opposed to we've got a good relationship, this is
[10:41] Speaker 2: going to be fine. But whenever you start a conversation
[10:44] Speaker 2: with do.
[10:44] Speaker 1: You trust me?
[10:46] Speaker 2: This is going to be heavy. So I've already got
[10:48] Speaker 2: your hecklels up.
[10:49] Speaker 1: I'm thinking about three or four big conversations we've had
[10:52] Speaker 1: to have with our kids in the last six months
[10:54] Speaker 1: or so, and to me, this is a big conversation.
[10:56] Speaker 1: It's huge because we're asking our children to develop a
[10:59] Speaker 1: limit around what they do online, knowing that they really
[11:04] Speaker 1: have to integrate. They have to identify the value of
[11:07] Speaker 1: it and integrate it themselves. We cannot always follow them
[11:10] Speaker 1: up here. So let's step into the next part of
[11:14] Speaker 1: the conversation, however you broach it. You want to step
[11:16] Speaker 1: into the conversation next by saying, at a general level,
[11:19] Speaker 1: what do you know about AI companions? There's a good
[11:22] Speaker 1: chance that your kids' friends will be using them, even
[11:25] Speaker 1: if your kids aren't, there's some chance that your kids
[11:27] Speaker 1: might be. And then just why do you think that
[11:30] Speaker 1: other people are using them? What do you think the
[11:32] Speaker 1: appeal is? And then eventually the key question, what does
[11:36] Speaker 1: the bot give people that feels good? Because those answers
[11:41] Speaker 1: around feeling wanted, feeling like you're an interesting person, satisfying curiosity,
[11:47] Speaker 1: those kinds of thing, they're the stuff that we really
[11:50] Speaker 1: want to be honing in on. Then you get to
[11:52] Speaker 1: move into the what these apps are really doing is
[11:55] Speaker 1: they are They're harvesting your need for connection, They're harvesting praying,
[12:00] Speaker 1: They're preying on Yournif your harvesting praying on on loneliness,
[12:05] Speaker 1: they're taking advantage. And I would actually be saying to
[12:09] Speaker 1: our kids, if you have rich, warm, real relationships in
[12:14] Speaker 1: the real world, then you're going to have a lot
[12:16] Speaker 1: less need for a synthetic one online. In fact, the
[12:18] Speaker 1: synthetic one is going to feel a little bit icky
[12:20] Speaker 1: and gross, and it just it'sn't going to even compute
[12:23] Speaker 1: in your head that it would be valuable to you.
[12:25] Speaker 2: It's interesting as you say that, I think about how
[12:28] Speaker 2: all of our friends and likes and shares on social
[12:34] Speaker 2: media has kind of been the platform of inauthentic connection, right,
[12:40] Speaker 2: that has led to this acceptance that a bot would replace.
[12:45] Speaker 1: It's an important point.
[12:46] Speaker 2: You know, a genuine friend, You've talked us through how
[12:50] Speaker 2: we could open up and have a dialogue with our child.
[12:53] Speaker 2: Are there any other practical things we can do as
[12:55] Speaker 2: parents to kind of navigate this.
[12:58] Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's kind of the stuff that makes a
[13:00] Speaker 1: parents shoulders sag and they.
[13:02] Speaker 2: I just noticed yours did literally shag as you said that.
[13:07] Speaker 1: Well, you asked the question because it's the stuff like
[13:10] Speaker 1: we need to be across what the kids are doing.
[13:13] Speaker 1: We've got to be monitoring. There's a Doctor's Desk episode
[13:15] Speaker 1: coming up in a few weeks that I can't wait
[13:17] Speaker 1: to get to. There's a study that's been done that
[13:19] Speaker 1: says it's not about parental knowledge, like your kid's doing, well,
[13:23] Speaker 1: it's not about what you know, it's about what they disclose.
[13:26] Speaker 1: So you need to do the knowledge stuff. You've got
[13:28] Speaker 1: to have the filters. You want to make sure you
[13:30] Speaker 1: keep smartphones out of the room at night, and other
[13:32] Speaker 1: tablets and devices out of the room at night and
[13:35] Speaker 1: out of the bathrooms. You want to have some sort
[13:37] Speaker 1: of a really firm family tech agreement with AI companions
[13:42] Speaker 1: explicitly named. They're all the things that we hear about
[13:45] Speaker 1: all the time, having software filters and hardware stoppages wherever
[13:50] Speaker 1: we can. But ultimately, this is not about what we
[13:54] Speaker 1: do so much is what the kids are willing to
[13:55] Speaker 1: disclose to us, Which brings me back to the question
[13:57] Speaker 1: of trust and whether you're establishing a conversation about trust
[14:01] Speaker 1: by explicitly stating trust is X like we mentioned before,
[14:04] Speaker 1: or you're stepping into it softly like you did by
[14:07] Speaker 1: just showing that you are trustworthy. The kids need to
[14:10] Speaker 1: feel safe being able to tell you stuff. If they
[14:13] Speaker 1: feel like they're going to get in trouble, if they
[14:15] Speaker 1: feel like they're going to have something confiscated, that's when
[14:18] Speaker 1: things go south. We need to have a relationship where
[14:22] Speaker 1: disclosure is the norm, because the kids want to bring
[14:27] Speaker 1: us in because they're confused or curious about something you touched.
[14:32] Speaker 2: On this before, but I think it's really important to
[14:34] Speaker 2: reiterate the idea with our children that a bot is
[14:38] Speaker 2: not a who. A bot is a what. And the
[14:43] Speaker 2: idea that's.
[14:43] Speaker 1: Such a good line. A bot is not a who,
[14:45] Speaker 1: it's a what.
[14:46] Speaker 2: I use Claude, like I said in my in My
[14:50] Speaker 2: Health journey.
[14:51] Speaker 1: You talk about Lord like Claude is a who, not
[14:53] Speaker 1: a what.
[14:54] Speaker 2: Well, he's a he. It's his name, claud.
[14:56] Speaker 1: So it is not a he. It has a male name,
[14:58] Speaker 1: but it is a bot.
[14:59] Speaker 2: But I have to keep reminding myself in my speech.
[15:03] Speaker 2: I know that he's not real, but I talk about
[15:06] Speaker 2: him as genderd.
[15:07] Speaker 1: Yeah, it as gendered. And so the conversation with our
[15:12] Speaker 1: kids is these bots, let's get good relationships outside of
[15:14] Speaker 1: the home.
[15:15] Speaker 2: And if you're feeling lonely, let's let's put a plan together.
[15:19] Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, we really hope there's been a helpful conversation. Please, please,
[15:23] Speaker 1: please don't make the mistake that so many parents make
[15:26] Speaker 1: and think the kids are okay and leave them unsupervised
[15:28] Speaker 1: and avoid the conversations. And if I'm coming to your
[15:31] Speaker 1: school and doing a talk on tweens, teens and screens,
[15:35] Speaker 1: yeah show up, like, don't roll your eysing. I don't
[15:37] Speaker 1: know what you do. Need to hurry all right? This week,
[15:40] Speaker 1: We've got a whole lot of really cool stuff on
[15:41] Speaker 1: the on the pod tomorrow how to manage kids squabbles,
[15:45] Speaker 1: but Donna King has a brand new book coming out
[15:47] Speaker 1: that you definitely need to know about, and our Doctor's
[15:50] Speaker 1: Desk episodes this week are going to blow your mind.
[15:53] Speaker 1: Join us all this week for more episodes of the
[15:56] Speaker 1: Happy Families podcast. Audio production by Justin rolland from media
[16:00] Speaker 1: Admin and other assistance from Mimhammond's and if you'd like
[16:04] Speaker 1: more info to make your family happier, Happy families dot
[16:07] Speaker 1: com dot a m HM

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