Your child sat down, opened their laptop, and finished their homework in 10 minutes. You thought: great kid, efficient, on top of things.

Brookings researchers have a different read on that moment. Their warning sign for AI-assisted homework that bypasses actual learning is precise: “When kids finish assignments quickly and can’t explain their answers, they may be using AI instead of exercising critical thinking.”

Fast isn’t the problem. Can’t explain it — that’s the problem.

This matters more right now than it ever has before. In March 2026, RAND published data showing that 62% of students now use AI for homework — up from 48% just seven months earlier. That is not a gradual shift. That is a generation changing how it does schoolwork faster than most schools have changed anything. And the students themselves know something is off: 67% of them agreed that the more they use AI, the more it harms their critical thinking skills. They’re not oblivious. They’re just not being given an alternative.

Meanwhile, research across 65,000 students by Brookings Institution found that fewer than 1 in 10 students ever operate in what the researchers call Explorer mode — genuinely curious, self-directed, motivated by understanding rather than completion. The rest are passengers. AI, used without intention, is the perfect passenger vehicle: it gets you to the destination without the journey that builds anything.

So what do you do tonight?

One question. When your child closes the laptop, ask them to explain what they just learned — not what they submitted. No notes, no screen. Just: “Walk me through it.”

If they can, the 10 minutes were real. If they stall, look blank, or reach for the device — you’ve just identified exactly where the learning stopped.

This isn’t about catching them out. It’s about giving them the one thing AI can’t give them: the experience of knowing something in their own words.

That experience is what they’ll carry into the exam. Into the interview. Into every moment that requires them to think under pressure without a phone in their hand.

Ten minutes of homework is fine. Ten minutes of thinking is what you’re paying for.