For families
Decide how technology works in your home, on purpose.
Feeds decide what you see. AI answers with confidence whether or not it is right. Faces and voices can be faked. The point is not a list of rules, it is a household that understands enough to make its own decisions.
What can a family use today?
Two published guides: how to start a Family Digital Charter, and a five step check to run before trusting an AI answer. Both are free, need no account, and ask nothing of a child. The Family Digital Charter Builder is the first HxDF tool being built and will walk a household through the same conversation; it is not available yet.
- Available now
- Two guides, free and with no account
- Being built
- The Family Digital Charter Builder
- Child account required
- Never
Why this, and why now
The gap is not a lack of concern. It is not knowing where to start.
Two independent studies published this year say the same thing from different directions: children are already using these tools heavily, and the conversation at home often has not happened.
Neither study says anything about whether HxDF helps. That has not been measured. They say the conditions are real, which is a different and more useful claim.
More than 4 in 10 say no parent or guardian has ever talked with them about AI safety.
Common Sense Media, Census: AI Use by Tweens and Teens (June 8, 2026). Census of 1,204 children ages 9 to 17.
64% of US teens ages 13 to 17 report using AI chatbots, and about three in ten of those who use them do so daily.
Pew Research Center, How Teens Use and View AI (February 24, 2026). Survey of 1,458 US teens ages 13 to 17, fielded September 25 to October 9, 2025, margin of error plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.
Not an internet safety class
Rules tell you what not to click. Understanding tells you why the feed wants you to.
Most digital safety education is a list of warnings. Warnings fade. What lasts is understanding how a system is built, who it is built for, and what it is optimized to do. Once you can see the machinery, the tricks stop working on you.
HxDF calls this AI and Digital Defense. It is embedded in every youth program, delivered to families with partners, and published as free resources.
What we teach
Nine things everyone should understand about the systems they live inside.
Each one is taught as a practical skill: something you can do differently tomorrow, not a concept to remember.
01
Algorithmic influence
Why your feed shows you what it shows you, who benefits, and how to notice when it is steering you.
02
AI errors and verification
AI systems produce confident answers that are sometimes wrong. How to check before you trust.
03
Synthetic media and provenance
Faces, voices, and documents can be generated. How to ask where something came from before believing it.
04
Scams and social engineering
How manipulation is engineered: urgency, authority, familiarity. How to slow it down.
05
Privacy and personal data
What you are giving away, to whom, and which permissions actually matter.
06
Bias and hidden incentives
Who built the system, what it was trained on, and what it is optimized to do.
07
Digital footprint
What is permanent, what is searchable, and how to decide what represents you.
08
Responsible use of generative AI
Using AI for school, work, and daily life without outsourcing your judgment.
09
Human oversight
When not to automate, and how to keep a person in the loop where it counts.
Family Digital Charter
In developmentBuild a family culture around technology instead of imposing technology rules.
Rules get imposed, argued about, and quietly broken. A charter is a short set of shared principles a household writes together, that applies to the adults too, and that gets revisited as kids grow and technology changes. HxDF is developing a facilitated version delivered with community partners. You can start tonight.
Photographs will come from HxDF programs, with permission. No stock imagery.
The family journey
- 01
Understand
Identify the digital systems shaping your household: the apps, feeds, and AI tools everyone actually uses.
- 02
Audit
Review devices, apps, permissions, feeds, AI use, and the recurring digital risks that keep showing up.
- 03
Decide
Write a Family Digital Charter: shared expectations and boundaries that reflect your values, not someone else's rules.
- 04
Practice
Learn practical uses of AI together, for school, work, planning, and creativity.
- 05
Review
Revisit the charter as children grow and technology changes.
What a charter covers
- Privacy and personal information
- Devices and where they live
- How the family uses AI
- Social media and feeds
- Verifying information before sharing it
- Passwords and accounts
- Digital boundaries with people online
- Technology breaks
- How we talk to each other online
Try it tonight.
Four questions to open the first conversation. Phones on the table, face down. Adults included.
Question 1
What information should never be shared with someone we only know online, and why?
Question 2
When an AI tool gives us an answer, how do we decide whether to trust it?
Question 3
Where do phones live at night, and who decided that?
Question 4
What is one thing each of us would like to build or make with technology this year?
The principle underneath
Use technology well enough to know when to put it down.
HxDF is not against screens, AI, or feeds. It is against being used by them. Capability includes knowing what a system wants from you, deciding what it deserves, and being able to walk away. That is the principle behind the Family Digital Charter, and behind every product HxDF will ever build for children.
Where Navigate shows up
Three places, one curriculum.
Inside every youth program
AI and Digital Defense is embedded in the AI Operations Lab. Every project ends with a responsible AI review written by the student.
With families, through partners
Family sessions and Digital Charter workshops hosted by schools, libraries, faith and community institutions that families already trust.
As public resources
Guides anyone can use, starting with the ones on this site. More as the curriculum matures.
Tools for families
Free, and nothing asked of a child.
Adults are the users. No child account is required for anything HxDF makes for families, and nothing a family writes is sent to HxDF.
For parents and guardians
Is this safe, useful, and worth my child's time?
Is this an internet safety class?
No. Safety is inside everything HxDF does, but the goal is capability: understanding how digital systems work so your family can make good decisions inside them, not a list of rules to enforce.
Who supervises youth programs?
Trained adults, screened before placement, at ratios set in HxDF's youth protection policy. Every hands on AI activity is supervised. The policy is in development and will be published before the first cohort starts.
What information about my child does HxDF collect?
As little as the program needs. Enrollment and emergency contact information, program records, and assessment results. Students are never asked to put unnecessary personal information into an AI tool. See Safeguarding and privacy for the full approach.
Which AI tools do students use?
Tools appropriate to the age group, configured for privacy, and reviewed before use. The specific tools change; the capabilities we teach do not.
Will my child be photographed or featured?
Only with written permission from a parent or guardian, for the specific use described. Never by default.
What does it cost?
HxDF programs are designed to be delivered at no cost to participating students and families, funded by sponsors and partners. This is confirmed per program before enrollment.
Family interest
Be first to hear about family sessions.
For parents and guardians. Tell us a little about your family and we will let you know when a Family Digital Charter session is scheduled near you. We ask for nothing about a child beyond an age range.
Community partners