I did not grow up thinking about artificial intelligence.
In fact, nobody in my neighborhood ever did. We grew up thinking about the basic things of life like passing exams, getting into university, and securing the kind of job that would make our parents proud at every family gathering.
Yes, that was the very simple plan. Study hard, get the certificate, find employment. It worked for a generation but definitely not working the same way anymore.
The first time I heard of artificial intelligence was in my favourite series The Flash. It wasn’t initially called Artificial Intelligence but Artificial Interactive Consciousness by “Cisco Ramon” the nerd who majored in science and technology in the series.
But as a young adult, I started paying serious attention to AI when I noticed something that disturbed me more than any economic statistic I had read. The kids of people who work in technology were talking about AI in the most casual and confident manner. As though it was the most natural thing in the world to have a machine help you think through a problem.
Meanwhile other Nigerian children have never heard about artificial intelligence for the first time in their entire time in secondary school. And if at all they did, it was framed as a distant future concern rather than a present reality shaping the economy they were about to enter. That gap troubled me, and yes, it still does.
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The Window That Most Parents Are Missing
There is something that happens in a child’s brain before the age of fifteen that does not happen as cleanly after it. The relationship a child forms with any tool, language, art or domain of knowledge during those years tends to become foundational rather than supplementary. A child who grows up speaking two languages does not experience the second language as foreign. It becomes part of how they fundamentally think.
The same principle applies to technology. The Nigerian child introduced to AI concepts at eight or nine will not experience AI as intimidating when they encounter it seriously at university or in the workplace. They arrive with a relationship already formed, a comfort already established, a curiosity that has had years to deepen.
The child introduced to AI for the first time at sixteen or seventeen is learning a tool while simultaneously overcoming the psychological barrier of feeling like they are late to something important. That barrier is very real and it costs time and confidence that could have been spent building genuine competence.
I’m not saying fifteen is a magic number. No, that’s not my point. I’m only saying it represents something real. By fifteen most Nigerian children are already in the middle of secondary school, already oriented toward examination performance, already operating within a system that has defined success for them in terms that have very little to do with AI literacy. Reaching them before that orientation solidifies gives parents a window that narrows considerably afterward.
What Nigerian Schools Are Actually Preparing Children For
It’s not news that the Nigerian curriculum, as it currently stands, prepares children for a version of the economy that is changing faster than the curriculum can respond to. The emphasis on memorization, on examination performance, on the reproduction of information rather than the application of it, produces graduates who are very good at the things the economy increasingly automates first.
Data entry. Routine document processing. Standard customer service interactions. Basic accounting functions. These are jobs that require real training and real effort. They are also jobs that AI handles competently and cheaply, which means the market for human beings doing them is contracting whether or not our education system has acknowledged it.
The parent who understands this dynamic is planning. They are asking what their child needs to be good at in addition to what the school is teaching, and they are making deliberate choices about how to supplement what the curriculum provides.
AI literacy is one of the most important answers to that question. Resources like House of Chrys at houseofchrys.com are building exactly this kind of foundation for African children — starting earlier than most people think is necessary, because early is precisely the point.
The Practical Reality of What This Looks Like
When I talk to Nigerian parents about introducing their children to AI the most common response I get is a version of the same concern. They do not know enough about it themselves to teach it. They are not sure where to start. They worry they will do it wrong. And the worst is, most parents think “hay hai” is just videos of talking animals and impossible things happening in ridiculously funny ways.
I honestly understand that concern. But it rests on a misunderstanding of what introducing a child to AI actually requires at the foundational level.
It requires curiosity and conversation. A parent willing to explore alongside their child rather than waiting until they feel qualified to lead. The occasional weekend afternoon where parent and child sit together, experiment with an AI tool, ask it questions, notice where it gets things right and where it gets things wrong, and talk about what that means.
Any child who has experienced AI making a confident error has learned something more valuable than children who only sees AI succeed. They have learned that AI is a tool with limitations. That human judgment matters. That the person directing the tool matters as much as the tool itself.
What I Think About When I Think About My Own Children
I want my kids to be very familiar with AI. I want them to know that artificial intelligence is a technology built by humans to solve problems — and like every technology built by people it reflects the choices, priorities, and blind spots of the people who built it. I want them comfortable enough to use it confidently and critical enough to question its output thoughtfully.
Most of all I want them to arrive at adulthood without the psychological barrier of feeling like AI is someone else’s domain. That barrier is expensive and it forms early if the right experiences do not happen first.
The parent who creates those experiences before fifteen is giving their child a psychological advantage. The confidence that comes from genuine familiarity with a powerful tool is something a university course or workplace training cannot replicate if the foundational relationship was never formed.
I believe the school system will catch up eventually. But eventually is not now. The children growing up right now are entering the economy that exists today, shaped by technology advancing today, competing alongside peers whose parents made decisions about AI literacy years before the school system made it compulsory.
Preparation is a decision. The best time to make it is before it ever feels urgent.
