Can I see what my child talked about with the AI tutor?

Yes — the complete transcript of every session is saved to your parent account, alongside a summary, the syllabus topics covered and the weak areas found. You read the actual conversation, not a summary you have to take on trust.

Is LearnBuddy an AI companion or friend for my child?

No, and it is deliberately built not to become one. Each session is locked to a single MOE syllabus topic, runs in capped chunks, and ends by itself after three minutes of silence. There are no streaks, XP or badges — nothing that rewards your child for coming back more often. Off-topic conversation gets one warm redirect and is then not engaged with.

Can my child use my account to change billing or delete data?

No. Handing over the tablet puts the app into a child sandbox that requires your six-digit PIN to leave. While it is active, the backend itself refuses parent-only actions such as billing, subscription changes, profile edits and data deletion, so bypassing the interface does not help.

What happens if my child says something worrying to the tutor?

The tutor is required to acknowledge it first and point your child to a trusted adult — a parent, teacher or school counsellor — without diagnosing or advising further. Typed messages are additionally screened for self-harm, hate speech and explicit content before they are answered, and session transcripts are scanned afterwards for welfare signals.

Does the AI tutor ask my child for personal information?

No. It is instructed never to ask for or store your child's school, age, address, phone number or family details. Your child's device also never connects to the AI provider directly — the app talks to our backend, and our backend talks to the model.

Will the AI tutor just tell my child the answer?

It is built not to. It is explicitly forbidden from praising an answer it has not verified, and from praising at all when it hasn't actually heard one — it asks your child to repeat instead. Wrong answers and silence are treated as cues to re-teach, not to move on.

Is an AI tutor suitable for a Primary 1 or Primary 2 child?

We would be cautious, and we would rather say so. Younger children benefit far more from adults, handwriting and conversation than from any software. LearnBuddy is most useful from around upper primary, where a child can already work independently and gets stuck on specific topics in the evening.

Does LearnBuddy replace my child's teacher or tuition?

No — it complements them. It is designed for the thing a class of thirty or a tuition group of twelve cannot give: unlimited patience on one topic at the moment your child is stuck. It can also be confidently wrong, which is why it is built to defer to your child's teacher and why you can read every transcript and check.

Home › Child safety

Singapore · P1–P6 · For parents

Is an AI tutor safe for my child?

Short answer: you can read every word your child says to LearnBuddy and every word it says back — the full transcript of every session is saved to your parent account. The tutor is locked to one MOE syllabus topic per session, it cannot end or redirect the session on its own, it is told never to ask your child for personal information, and it is not designed to be your child's friend. It is a subject tutor with a timer on it.

Most "is AI safe for kids" pages are written to sell you something. This one is a description of how the software actually behaves, with the specific limits we built in — including the things LearnBuddy deliberately refuses to do and the places where a human teacher is still the better answer.

LearnBuddy is not an AI companion

LearnBuddy is not an AI companion, and we think the distinction matters. A companion app is designed to maximise the time your child spends with it and to become someone they confide in. LearnBuddy is designed to run out. A session is a single locked topic, it runs in capped chunks, and if your child stops talking for three minutes it ends by itself. There is no streak to protect, no XP, no badge, and nothing that rewards coming back more often. If your child wants to chat about something other than the topic, the tutor redirects once, warmly, and then does not engage with it again.

What you can see as a parent

The single most common objection to tuition of any kind is that you pay and then have no idea what happened in the room. The whole session is visible to you, in text, permanently.

The full transcript of every session

Everything your child said and everything the tutor said is stored on the session record and readable from your parent account. Not a summary you have to trust — the actual conversation.

A written summary and the topics covered

Each session is summarised, with the syllabus topics it touched and the weak areas it found, so you can skim when you don't have time to read.

Progress reports you can download

Reports are generated from the last 30 sessions and exported as PDF. They require at least three sessions of real feedback before they will generate, so an early report can't overstate what we know.

What the tutor will not do

These are hard instructions in the system prompt that builds every session, not aspirations. They are the same for every child, every subject.

It stays on one topic

The topic is locked for the whole session. If your child goes off-topic — gaming, social media, another subject — the tutor redirects once, warmly, and then will not engage with that content again. It also never asks your child what they'd like to talk about instead.

It never asks for personal information

The tutor is instructed never to ask for or store your child's school, age, address, phone number or family details.

It won't praise a wrong answer

Sycophantic praise for a wrong or nonsense answer is explicitly forbidden, and the tutor is instructed not to praise at all when it hasn't actually heard an answer — it asks your child to repeat instead.

It won't pretend to see the whiteboard

The tutor cannot see the drawing canvas in real time. It is forbidden from describing or commenting on anything there unless your child has actually shared a snapshot. Inventing observations about a child's work is the fastest way to destroy their trust, so it is a hard rule.

It can't decide the lesson is over

The AI has no ability to end a session. Only your child pressing End, the session timer, or the three-minute idle timeout stops it. It is also forbidden from saying goodbye-shaped things to wind a child down early.

It tells your child to check with their teacher

On anything ambiguous the tutor is required to add that your child should confirm it with their teacher. We would rather it defer than sound more certain than it is.

If your child is having a bad day

A tutor for children will eventually meet a child who is upset. We decided in advance what should happen, rather than leaving it to the model.

Empathy first, then a trusted adult

If your child expresses sadness, loneliness or distress, the tutor is required to acknowledge it before anything else and to point them toward a parent, teacher or school counsellor. It is forbidden from diagnosing, speculating, or giving advice beyond that referral, and forbidden from snapping straight back to the lesson.

Typed messages are screened before they're answered

Text your child sends in the chat surface runs through a safety classifier for hate speech, explicit content and self-harm signals before it is answered. It is deliberately lenient about Singlish and ordinary childhood grumbling — "I hate homework" is not an incident.

Sessions are reviewed afterwards for welfare signals

After a live session the transcript is scanned for child-welfare signals and anything serious is recorded as an incident for a human to look at. This runs after the session, so it never interrupts a lesson.

Who is in control of the account

Your child using LearnBuddy should not mean your child having your account. The sandbox is enforced on the server, not just hidden in the interface.

A six-digit parent PIN

Handing the tablet to your child puts the app into child mode. Leaving child mode requires your PIN, which is stored only as a bcrypt hash and is rate-limited against guessing.

The lock is enforced on the server

While child mode is active, parent-only actions — billing, subscription changes, editing profiles, deleting data — are refused by the backend itself. Getting around the interface is not enough, because the block does not live in the interface.

One child at a time

A sandboxed session is pinned to one child profile. It cannot reach a sibling's sessions, reports or data.

Data, and what we don't do with it

Plainly, because this is where most parents actually stop and think.

Your child's device never talks to the AI provider

The app connects to our backend, and our backend talks to the model. The provider is never handed a direct line to your child's browser, and our API keys never reach the device.

There is no advertising on LearnBuddy

No ads, no ad tracking, no third-party advertising identifiers. There is nothing on the platform that is paid for by your child's attention.

Deletion actually deletes

When a profile is deleted, the uploaded files attached to it are removed from storage too, and a background job sweeps anything that was missed. Deletion is not just a hidden flag.

Where a human is still better

It can be wrong. It is a language model working through primary syllabus material, and it will sometimes make a mistake with total confidence. That is why it is built to defer to your child's teacher, and why you can read the transcript and check.
It cannot tell that your child is quietly miserable about school. It can catch words on a screen; it cannot read a face across a table.
It does not replace a teacher who knows your child, and we don't market it as though it does. It is most useful for the specific thing a class of thirty or a tuition group of twelve can't offer: unlimited patience on one topic, on the evening your child is actually stuck.
For lower primary especially, we agree with the cautious position: young children need adults and handwriting and talking to people far more than they need any software, ours included.

Free past-year papers — no account needed

Common questions

Can I see what my child talked about with the AI tutor?: Yes — the complete transcript of every session is saved to your parent account, alongside a summary, the syllabus topics covered and the weak areas found. You read the actual conversation, not a summary you have to take on trust.
Is LearnBuddy an AI companion or friend for my child?: No, and it is deliberately built not to become one. Each session is locked to a single MOE syllabus topic, runs in capped chunks, and ends by itself after three minutes of silence. There are no streaks, XP or badges — nothing that rewards your child for coming back more often. Off-topic conversation gets one warm redirect and is then not engaged with.
Can my child use my account to change billing or delete data?: No. Handing over the tablet puts the app into a child sandbox that requires your six-digit PIN to leave. While it is active, the backend itself refuses parent-only actions such as billing, subscription changes, profile edits and data deletion, so bypassing the interface does not help.
What happens if my child says something worrying to the tutor?: The tutor is required to acknowledge it first and point your child to a trusted adult — a parent, teacher or school counsellor — without diagnosing or advising further. Typed messages are additionally screened for self-harm, hate speech and explicit content before they are answered, and session transcripts are scanned afterwards for welfare signals.
Does the AI tutor ask my child for personal information?: No. It is instructed never to ask for or store your child's school, age, address, phone number or family details. Your child's device also never connects to the AI provider directly — the app talks to our backend, and our backend talks to the model.
Will the AI tutor just tell my child the answer?: It is built not to. It is explicitly forbidden from praising an answer it has not verified, and from praising at all when it hasn't actually heard one — it asks your child to repeat instead. Wrong answers and silence are treated as cues to re-teach, not to move on.
Is an AI tutor suitable for a Primary 1 or Primary 2 child?: We would be cautious, and we would rather say so. Younger children benefit far more from adults, handwriting and conversation than from any software. LearnBuddy is most useful from around upper primary, where a child can already work independently and gets stuck on specific topics in the evening.
Does LearnBuddy replace my child's teacher or tuition?: No — it complements them. It is designed for the thing a class of thirty or a tuition group of twelve cannot give: unlimited patience on one topic at the moment your child is stuck. It can also be confidently wrong, which is why it is built to defer to your child's teacher and why you can read every transcript and check.

Last updated 2026-09-03. Written by Yap Chin Wei, founder of LearnBuddy. See also our privacy policy and terms.