AI-Empowered Mom

Every night at the dinner table, Lauren Petrowski's family plays a game you might already know, rose, bud, thorn. Then they added a fourth: water. Who did you water today, or who watered you? Her kids look forward to it so much that they have started noticing small acts of kindness all day long, just so they have something to share. Lauren has spent 20 years asking people questions on camera, from breaking news in the field to 5-minute morning show interviews to her own Instagram series, Let's Get Curious. She says curiosity is not something you either have or don't. It's a skill, and she walks through exactly how to build it, in yourself and in your kids. We get into what to do when one kid opens up the moment you see them and the other needs to wait until bedtime, why kids need to be bored instead of entertained, and the one question Lauren says you can always ask another mom. And since this is the AI Empowered Mom podcast, I had to ask: what is AI doing to our curiosity? Lauren's answer is more complicated than a simple yes or no, and it changed how I think about letting a chatbot write my own interview questions. Chapters 00:00 Rose, bud, thorn, water, and why curiosity matters now01:35 Welcome, Lauren Petrowski01:46 A day in Lauren's life right now02:29 Calendar chaos and one AI nudge03:42 Curiosity as a career05:03 Planned questions versus thinking on her feet06:33 Is curiosity a skill you can learn07:21 Living in her curiosity era08:13 Getting kids to open up, by age10:25 Teaching kids to ask better questions11:45 What AI is doing to our curiosity12:57 The risk of handing your questions to AI14:15 The question Lauren wishes more people asked her15:16 Chatbot mode: holiday small talk swaps15:58 One question to ask, one to skip, with another mom16:55 A recent win worth celebrating17:53 Where to find Lauren and Let's Get Curious18:03 Closing thanks18:17 Key takeaway and how to follow the show About Lauren Lauren Petrowski is a TV host with 20 years of on-camera experience, from breaking news reporter to morning show anchor. She now hosts lifestyle segments for stations in Austin and Waco, works as a media communications coach, speaker, and MC, and hosts Let's Get Curious, an Instagram interview series with founders, creators, and the people making Austin interesting. She is a mom of 2. Instagram: @LaurenPetrowski Connect with AI-Empowered Mom Newsletter: https://www.aiempoweredmom.com/Instagram: @aiempoweredmomEmail: [email protected] What is the best question someone has asked you lately? Send it to me. A follow and a rating help other parents and caregivers find the show.

You vetted the app. You checked the settings. You decided it was fine. Then one day an AI chatbot showed up inside it, and nobody sent you a note. Titania Jordan has spent close to two decades in online safety, and she is the first to say parents should not have to keep up with every feature drop. She is the chief parent officer at Bark Technologies and the author of Parental Control: A Guide to Raising Balanced Kids in the Digital Era. A parent can now ask a chatbot to walk them through every parental control setting in the house and get an answer in seconds. The same technology is being misused to generate abuse material from a single photo of a child’s face. Titania says both are true at once. She shares the 3 things she leans on instead of tracking every update, why her strongest recommendation costs nothing, and what she said at dinner when her son asked whether he could escape student loans by moving to another country. I also read a passage from her book out loud and asked whether her thinking has shifted since it published. And for any kid who has decided AI took the career they wanted, her oldest is applying to art school for illustration. Her answer to him is in here. Chapters 00:00 The app you approved already changed 00:17 Meet Titania Jordan 01:46 From radio and Facebook groups to online safety 05:56 What Bark actually does 07:00 Why Bark is free for every school in the US 08:28 Easier or harder for parents? Both, because of AI 11:16 You should not have to keep up 12:26 House rules, gatekeeping, and ask to buy 13:20 The relationship is the real parental control 14:15 Sarah reads a passage from Parental Control 15:08 Learning AI side by side at dinner 17:26 What to say to a kid who thinks AI took their future 19:18 Bathtub and bathing suit photos in the deepfake era 20:30 Chatbot mode: the emoji and acronym decoder 22:19 Thoughts on Meta’s new AI assistant 23:59 The one control to turn on today 25:03 Please do not think “not my child” 26:11 Where to find Titania and the book About Titania Titania Jordan is the chief parent officer at Bark Technologies and the author of Parental Control and Parenting in a Tech World. She founded the Parenting in a Tech World Facebook group in 2017, now around 700,000 parents strong. Book: on Amazon and wherever books are sold Bark: bark.us Connect with AI-Empowered Mom Newsletter: https://www.aiempoweredmom.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aiempoweredmom Email: [email protected] What is the one app you thought you had figured out until it changed? Send it to me. A follow and a rating help other parents and caregivers find the show.

Children's author Katie Eisenhart Schaeffer was at a happy hour for third grade moms when her phone buzzed. A family member had sent screenshots and a message: her brand new children's book had been ripped off. The screenshots were Google AI search results describing her book accurately and crediting an Instagram handle that was not hers. Host Sarah Dooley was standing right next to her. What happened next is the part worth hearing. Katie searched the handle and found nothing. She tried to recreate the search and could not. The result had been generated, and it never appeared again. We walk through that night, what she checked, and what she does now before she believes an answer. We also get into the real version of this problem, where authors do have their titles copied and resold, the privacy settings worth reviewing if you use AI near your own work, and how Katie found an illustrator who paints in watercolor and does not own a computer. At the time of recording, roughly 1 in 10 AI search results still contains a factual error, and the wrong ones look exactly like the right ones. Chapters 00:00 Sponsor message from Nookly00:49 The text that said her book was stolen02:02 Meet Katie Eisenhart Schaeffer03:51 What she checked first05:07 How to spot an AI result in Google06:58 The 1 in 10 problem and the real book scams08:15 Privacy settings worth reviewing08:38 What AI helped with, and what it did not09:52 Inside Red Elephants and Blue Donkeys10:54 The illustrator who does not own a computer12:29 Circling back to the family member14:06 What to do when a result feels off14:49 Chatbot mode17:18 One takeaway for parents About Katie Katie Eisenhart Schaeffer is an Austin author and mom of 2. She spent years in PR and communications before writing her debut picture book, Red Elephants and Blue Donkeys, illustrated by Charles Fuge. Written for ages 4 to 8, it is about setting petty differences aside to solve a shared problem. Find the book and sign up for preorder news: redelephantsandbluedonkeys.comInstagram: @authorkatieeisenhartschaeffer This episode is sponsored by Nookly You tell Nookly what you are working on with your kid, and it builds personalized stories, activities, songs, and videos around that goal. Visit nookly.com and use code AIMUM25 for 25 percent off. Connect with AI-Empowered Mom Free weekly newsletter, every Sunday: https://www.aiempoweredmom.com/Instagram: @aiempoweredmomEmail: [email protected] Have a story about an AI answer that sent you down the wrong path? Send it to me. A follow and a rating help other parents and caregivers find the show.

Amanda Benson spent 20 years in emerging tech running one strategy: do more, then do more than that. When AI arrived she used it the way an overachiever would. Then her body told her the strategy was finished. What came next is the framework at the center of this conversation with host Sarah Dooley. "Remember. Release. Intentionally Add." Amanda walks through what it means to remember who you were before the world told you who to be, release what stopped serving you, and add back only the support you actually chose, whether that is AI, a therapist, a teammate, or kids who finally fold their own laundry. We also get into the question I could not resist asking. Can you be a systems person and a breath work person at the same time? Amanda says yes, and the story she tells about a field of rabbits in the Swedish countryside is the reason. Her company is called AI+You Studio, and the name is the whole thesis. AI is at its best when you are at your best. Why Amanda went all in on AI at the end of 2022 Training AI to be your executive coach when overwhelm hits Remember, release, and intentionally add, explained Why adding more tools can leave you more overwhelmed Why the future of AI is human led The case for picking one AI tool and going deep 2 apps vibe coded in a single weekend 00:00 A word from Nookly00:51 Welcome to AI-Empowered Mom02:18 Meet Amanda Benson02:47 20 years in emerging tech, and one big hunch03:40 Using AI to overachieve, and why it stopped working05:00 AI as an executive coach06:14 What stays uniquely human06:37 Remember, release, and intentionally add08:10 Waking up from the bubble at the end of your thirties10:50 The girl in the field12:50 Systems and breath work in the same room13:06 Chatbot mode13:27 One Swedish habit worth borrowing, plus fika14:16 What is in her tech stack14:46 A win to celebrate15:53 Where to find Amanda16:34 Sarah's takeaway "AI is at its best when you are at your best." Amanda Benson WholeSum app and podcast: wholesumos.comSocial: @whatsnewamandaAI+You Studio Instagram: @aiempoweredmomFree weekly newsletter, every Sunday night: aiempoweredmom.comEmail: [email protected] If this episode gave you an idea or made your mental load feel lighter, follow the show and leave a rating or review. It helps other parents and caregivers find us. Nookly. You set the goal, Nookly builds the plan with personalized stories, activities, songs, and videos for your child. Visit nookly.com and use code AIMUM25 for 25% off, or visit here. Top Shelf. A 3-day retreat for ambitious women in tech and go-to-market, built around one idea: you deserve a real reset. Career and personal brand sessions, sound baths, wine country, and room to think about what is next. Co-founded by Jennifer Ortegon, visit https://topshelfretreat.com/ The Stepmom Summit. Now in its 6th year. This year's theme is Out Loud. It is free, fully virtual, and fully live, with 30 or more speakers including therapists, lawyers, professors, authors, and AI experts. Sarah is speaking this year. Register here: https://thestepmomsummit.com/registration?am_id=sarah8379

This episode is sponsored by Ask Proxy™, a personal AI assistant for your parents' generation. Gift a free month: https://askproxy.com/gifting/ (code AIMOM) or explore Proxy for yourself: https://app.askproxy.com/purchase (code AIMOM) Do you consider yourself ambitious? In a room full of accomplished women in a program literally called Women Who Mean Business, that question turned out to be surprisingly divisive. This week, host Sarah Dooley sits down with Dr. Anne Welsh, licensed clinical psychologist, executive coach, and author of the new book Ambitious Mother, to talk about why the word ambitious feels so loaded for so many mothers, and what it actually means to want something for yourself. Anne shares her own winding path, from an acceptance letter to medical school she turned down, to building a dream job at Harvard, to walking away from that too when she asked to go part time after her second child and was told it was not an option. She talks about reframing ambition as a web instead of a ladder, why motherhood can expand ambition instead of shrinking it, and what happened when she asked an AI tool to change the font color on her book cover and it renamed the whole thing instead. In this episode: 1. Anne's path from medical school to psychology to Harvard to building her own practice 2. What a portfolio career actually looks like, and how Anne built hers one piece at a time 3. Inside her book, Ambitious Mother: the ambition paradox, the motherhood advantage, and healthy striving 4. The question that divides a room: are you ambitious? 5. Reframing ambition as a web instead of a ladder 6. How motherhood can expand ambition instead of shrinking it 7. Where AI helps, where it doesn't, and the gender bias in how AI use gets judged at work 8. The day AI renamed Anne's book, and what it revealed about bias in AI 9. Rapid-fire round with Anne About Dr. Anne Welsh: Anne is a licensed clinical psychologist, certified executive coach, and author of Ambitious Mother, available now everywhere books are sold and on Audible. The book profiles 8 women who are ambitious for very different things. Find Anne at drannewelsh.com or on Instagram and LinkedIn at Dr. Anne Welsh. If this episode gave you a little more clarity about your own ambition, follow AI-Empowered Mom and leave a rating or review. It truly helps other parents and caregivers find the show. Have a topic you want us to cover? Reach out at [email protected] or find us on Instagram @aiempoweredmom.