Safe and Ready Kids: Raising Kids Who Are Safe AND Ready for Growing Up in the AI Age — Ages 0–10

Most books on raising kids in the age of screens, social media, and artificial intelligence are written to scare you or to soothe you. Both miss the point.Safe and Ready Kids is for parents who want to see the landscape clearly and act on it — without panic, without permissiveness, and without pretending the environment is what it used to be. Written by an attorney whose career has centered on protecting children from online harms, this is the book Loy Ehlers wrote for his own grandchildren and for the parents raising them.Inside, you will find a practical framework — the Safe and Ready Method™ — built on four pillars you can apply at any age. Protect the home structure, the devices, and the defaults. Prepare your child through the conversations they need before they need them. Practice with your child before letting them practice alone. Participate in their digital life as the parent who hears about problems first, not last.You will find honest answers to the questions most parents are actually asking. When does my child need their first phone. Is YouTube Kids really safe. What do I do if our family has already drifted. What if my co-parent and I do not agree. How do I talk to my child about what they have seen. How do I know when the AI my child is using has crossed a line.You will find concrete walkthroughs for the tools that matter — Apple Screen Time, Google Family Link, YouTube Kids, Apple Intelligence, and the AI features now embedded in the apps your child already uses. You will find sample conversations, worked examples of using AI as a parenting tool, and three completed Family Media Plans you can adapt to your family.Most importantly, you will find a steady voice. The author is an attorney, author, and educator who has spent more than three decades watching how the legal system catches up to the way children actually grow up. He serves as General Counsel for a technology company focused on protecting children from online harms, and as a Founding Board Member of the SAFE Council — an international governance initiative developing the first enforceable standard for AI-mediated child safeguarding. He is also a grandfather. All three are why this book exists.Safe and Ready Kids is the first volume in a two-book series. Volume One covers ages zero through ten — the years where the foundation is set. Volume Two will cover ages ten through seventeen — the years where it gets tested. Both are built around the same framework, designed to grow with your family.Begin with what is. Decide deliberately. Hold the line. Stay in conversation.Be the parent your child can come to. Read more