Using AI in an intentional way with purpose and direction should be great for practicing thinking.

The right way to teach children to use AI is to teach them to scope, filter, design process, edit, refine. How to ask a question, how to think through steps, how to use language to describe all these things. Each kid has something that can think and respond as fast as they input.

The goal should be to perfect sequence and iteration, not skip to final output.

These skills also should NOT be framed in some kind of "teaching AI" as much as teaching communication and critical thinking and analysis. It is the exact same skills you need to solve problems and interact with humans.