Recently, I heard a story from a friend. My middle school nephew had his light on until two in the morning, and I thought he was playing games, but it turned out he was chatting with an AI chatbot all night.

At first, I laughed, but as I listened, it became clear that it wasn't a laughing matter. What started as homework questions turned into a counseling session, and before long, the chatbot became a friend he couldn't stop talking to.

As someone who has enjoyed using apps to chat with anime characters, I understand the appeal. The chatbot never gets tired, is always on your side, and replies instantly.

So today, I've compiled some settings that parents can actually enable. The goal is not to spy but to ensure kids get enough sleep.

First, let's look at the most commonly used ChatGPT. OpenAI introduced parental controls on September 29, 2025, allowing parents to link their accounts with those of their children aged 13 and older.

The connection is made through an email invitation, and both parents and children must agree to it. This means it's not an app that can be secretly installed, so parents need to discuss it with their kids first.

The most direct way to manage late-night chatting is through the Quiet hours setting. During the specified time, the connected child account cannot use ChatGPT at all.

The path to set this up is through the parent account's Settings, then Parental controls, where you select the child from the family members, turn on Quiet hours, and set the start and end times. According to OpenAI's help guide, you can now set multiple time slots.

If it were me, I would set it from 10 PM to 6 AM on weekdays. During exam periods, negotiating with the child to extend it a bit is also fine.

Additionally, you can turn off voice mode, image generation, and memory features. The memory feature remembers conversation content for future chats, so turning it off reduces the feeling of the chatbot being a long-time friend.

There's also an option to reduce sensitive content, and in rare cases where a child shows serious warning signs, parents receive safety alerts. However, parents cannot read the conversation content.

I actually like this part. If parents could see everything, kids would just switch to another app.

Since January of this year, OpenAI has also added an age prediction feature. If the account usage patterns suggest the user is under 18, a more cautious mode is automatically applied.

However, this is a mechanism the company manages, so it's hard to trust it completely. It's much more reliable for parents to directly set Quiet hours.

Next, let's look at character chat apps. Character.AI has blocked unrestricted character chatting for accounts under 18 since the end of November 2025.

During the transition period, they limited minor chat time to two hours a day and gradually reduced it. Even now, teens can still use features to create characters or videos, so check if your child's account is registered as an adult.

We also need to look at Instagram. Meta announced last October that parents could disable one-on-one chats with AI characters or block specific characters.

Then in January of this year, they announced a temporary halt to teen access to AI characters until a new version is released. The exact status can change with app updates, so I recommend checking directly in the family center menu.

In fact, there's a stronger method than blocking each app. It's the time limits on the phone itself.

If you have an iPhone, you can set downtime in Screen Time to only allow certain apps during the night. For Android, you can set sleep times with Google Family Link.

This way, it reduces the chances of kids accessing other chatbot sites through the browser. Think of app-specific settings as secondary and device settings as primary.

The simplest and most effective method is to keep the charger in the living room. It may seem old-fashioned, but it's really powerful.

However, just changing the settings isn't enough. You need to understand why your child is drawn to chatbots at night.

It could be due to loneliness or unspoken worries from school. Since chatbots always respond kindly, it's not strange for kids to rely on them.

I don't view AI negatively. It can be quite useful as a homework helper and is a tool that parents with limited English skills can use alongside their kids.

However, chatting endlessly with a machine at night is a different story. Reducing sleep to share feelings with a machine isn't good for adults either.

So tonight, there are three things to do: connect accounts and set Quiet hours, enable phone downtime, and casually ask your child what they've been talking about lately.

Asking cutely and protecting firmly—that's the best combination I can think of. I hope tonight will be a night when my child sleeps soundly.