Book: Human Raised

Human Raised

Nurturing Connection, Curiosity & Lifelong Learning in the Age of AI

Dana Suskind, MD

310 pp., hardcover

Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Random House Publishing

When I was a child, when President Reagan was calling on Mr. Gorbachev to “tear down this wall” and you had four options for broadcast television (and a converter box if you wanted to be entertained by 4 or 8 bits of processing power!), my parents would not buy me the cool toy the kid down the street had. It was a nifty little Texas Instruments device called a “Speak & Spell,” and they were concerned that my sister and I would end up trying to talk like the digitized voice rather than speaking like a person.

I just wanted something to use for communicating with aliens if they crashed on our street. After all, I had seen E.T. In truth, I had a habit of mimicking movies far more than what noises I could get out of educational toys. Still, this part of my childhood echoes to the present moment because we’re still challenged about how much to expose children to screen times, digitally-processed responses, and non-human learning aids.

While I have not gone back and read the parenting advice from the disco-era that guided my upbringing, my wife and I did consult other turn-of-the-millennium books as our kids were born. Now, we’re looking at parenting tips for friends and future grandchildren in the new era, where Generative Artificial Intelligence is part of the fibers of life, along with algorithms that guide our shopping and the ads we see when we stream programs over dozens of platform options.

Into this milieu comes Human Raised, by Dana Suskind, MD. Dr. Suskind writes here to set forth some templates about how to keep your parenting (especially) guided toward making human connections, so that your children end up more human-focused than digitally guided people as adults. After all, the goal is not “good kids,” but adults capable of thriving in the world around them. “Good kids” are a stage in that development process, but then again, “challenging kids” are also a stage. 

Some folks will likely fault Dr. Suskind’s work because she does not come out flatly against using AI-tools in parenting, including exposing children to the products of AI. While there are valid ethical critiques of many AI-systems, from their flamboyant thefts of intellectual property to their excessive destruction of environmental systems, she approaches the situation with the realism that says: “There will be AI, so how do we deal with it?” If you’re looking for a debate about AI overall, this is not it. She does not deny the need for that debate, but is not hosting it here.

Instead, you have basic guidance on researching AI and what you should and should not use it for. There are several chapters first establishing the very real need for parents and caregivers to be human-first in their interactions with children. Suskind makes plain that imperfect human interaction far supersedes algorithmic perfection. (She also acknowledges that most algorithms aren’t going to hit perfection anyway!) Her medical specialty in pediatrics and otolaryngology (I was a frequent ENT patient as a kid, lots of ear infections!) exposes her to many children’s diverse development challenges and provides good illustration of the real-world principles she writes about. 

I found her acknowledgement that family resources, such as financial wealth, access to medical care, and extended support groups of people, will affect whether you can use AI to strengthen your parenting, help you survive challenges, or not even be able to use it a valuable note. Too often, guidance on technology assumes equal access. Again, life in pediatrics has made clear that not everyone can do everything. (If you’d like to see authors who don’t note these inequalities, check out most nutrition writers. The assumption is massive that anyone can afford, in time, energy, and access, to eat perfectly all the time.)

Each chapter in this book ends with a helpful TL;DR section, giving you, the reader, the main takeaways from each chapter. One should still read the chapters! However, life gets busy. You will see the value of each chapter as you check these chapters out. If you see this book on a bookstore shelf and want to know if it’s worthwhile, take a peak at any of those chapter endings.

Finally, almost worth the price of purchase itself, she walks the reader through an investigative framework using DETECT as an acronym. This shows up in the body of the text starting in chapter 8, but then is helpfully pulled-out into an appendix for easy reference. This framework guides the reader in evaluating AI and other technology implementations. I expect to see this material to show up in parenting seminars soon.

All-in-all, Dr. Suskind has produced a well-constructed argument for rational use of AI and other technology tools to allow parents more space to build human connections with their children. She provides good cautions about not letting the technology overrun human imperfection, and the gives a good framework for investigating any technology or activity you involve your children with.

Weather Delays Part 2

 A couple of days ago, I used this space to share about our daughter's minor travails in getting back from New York City. She happily reported that no one offered her picante sauce while there, but then again, that's more of a GenX joke that you might not get.

Still, we left her unresolved, waiting for an answer to her weather delayed flight. It was a good time to reflect on being powerless and the reality that our lives are often filled with powerless moments and it's more about how well we navigate them than eliminating them. After all, if you are always "in control" then you are rarely out of your normal space. (That's not to minimize that you often do have at least the "control" of backing out of a situation. That's not exactly "in control" because you can't change anything from it.)

Now, first, let's resolve the real-life situation: after a 3-hour delay in NYC, her flight arrived in Atlanta just as her flight from Atlanta to Little Rock took off. As in, one plane descending, one plane rotating off the tarmac on a different runway. Which led to spending the night in the Atlanta airport, flying back to Little Rock first thing the *next* morning, where we picked her up from the airport and took her home so she could sleep.

There are perhaps life lessons here about things God protected her from that she'll never know about, but I think there's also a valuable lesson here that sometimes, life just goes wrong. 

And that's it. There's no lesson. There was no "oh, if you had made your first flight, this horrible thing would have happened." (Although that is, at times, true.)

Life just is not always easy. And frustration comes from it. But you're well-served if you learn to only let the real frustrations bug you: sleeping in an airport chair is definitely frustrating! Don't add the frustration and emotional wreckage of being mad that it wasn't easy.

Some basic tips for this:

1. Be ready for things to go haywire at various times. It's going to happen eventually, anyway.

2. Be aware of the people that will help you as life takes weird turns. In this specific case, our daughter realized she needed help with sorting out getting home from the airport, since she was not coming when her roommate could pick her up. Oh, and then realized it needed to be someone with a key to her apartment, since it wasn't her roommate coming to pick her up!

3. Be calm when needed. Sometimes, you have to focus. Have some calm ready.

4. Be emotional when necessary. She called at 1 AM with tears. That's fine. I've melted down in airport in a chaos moment before, too...

5. Be available to others in their chaos. Without snark. Without criticism. Just be willing to help.

Ministry Chronicles: Sending Church Step 2: Initial Questions

In the initial installment of this series, I ran down how we at Mt. Olive Baptist Church started our involvement with church planting through Send Network: Arkansas. Look at the "sendingchurch" label for that one and for any future installments.

One thing that needs to be said here: when you are introducing something new to a church family, especially a traditional church that has never done it before, there will be questions. Some of those questions will appear silly, nonsensical, or obvious to those who have been down that road before. That does not mean these are bad questions. It just indicates that there are larger gaps in understanding between many church folks and the people who are in one niche of Baptist life.

(By contrast, I have a feeling there are normal parts of being a traditional church pastor that some church planting folks would have an understanding gap about...)

None of these questions are shared with an intention of shaming the askers. Each one of these came from someone who had the best interest of Mt. Olive Baptist at heart. They were trying to understand and make sure we do what we are supposed to do in following Jesus.

(Also quick note: I did not write these down word-for-word, so in the tradition of Herodotus, I shall give the sense of the question as best I know.)

First question: "Why do they want us to be their "Sending Church"?" It's one thing when your church is sending out members to start something that the church is aware of; it's another matter when it's strangers that only the pastor has met. It's a good question.

Second question: "Why does El Dorado need another church?" It had close kin in the question "Why not just try harder with Southside El Dorado?" These are good questions. There are some long debates about whether or not it's necessary to start new churches especially in towns with lots of churches. I'll shortcut the debate and simply say that there are people who are going unreached by the churches we've got, then we may need more churches. As to shutting down the old one and starting a new one: sometimes, the organizational baggage is just heavy enough that the best thing to do is close the old shop and start a new one.

Those questions are better answered by asking this question: Do we trust the people we are working with to listen to the guidance of the Holy Spirit? That's a critical part of this situation. If you are partnered with a church planting team that you do not trust to be praying and following Jesus, then you need to back up and start with some prayers and reconsideration.

Third question: "Why are they asking us instead of a church in El Dorado?" First part is that you need to trust the team. The second thing we should consider is that sometimes churches aren't particularly as willing to help out locally. It's harder to suggest that we support a church down the street from us that might nab people that our church could reach. Unfortunately, we tend to judge churches and pastors on items that only show on spreadsheets and it can be hard to get past that.

Fourth question: "How much money will this cost us?" Whether or not your church has a lot of money, you will face this question. The truth is, you have options. You can contribute as much as possible, but you can also just be part of stewarding resources coming in from other sources. This is probably where our church is going to start out: Send Network money will come in, we'll forward it onward. We'll provide administrative help as part of our overall normal spending for such things.

Fifth question: "What happens if they need a pastor in a few years? Will you leave and go pastor that church?" Part of the underlying question here is even broader: "What will you do when they need something and we need the same thing? How do we make that work?" 

Sixth question: "How long are we doing this?" Ties in somewhat to the previous question: will this distract us from our work?

Seventh question: "What are we going to need to do as part of this?" Partly driven by folks who do not want to make just a verbal commitment and not really doing anything else. They want to know that there is meaningful involvement in the decision.

Eighth question: "Are we going to need to send people to be part of the new church?" Our church helped start a church more than 4 decades ago in the model of the time: preaching point, mission church, all frequently started out of realizing that "lots of people are driving a long way to our church and they all come from this area." 

Ninth question: "Will this take up too much of the pastor's time?" alongside "Pastor, you just recently nearly died because your blood pressure went nuts, can you handle adding stress/work to your plate?" There are certain parts of this partnership that, especially until someone else in the church is ready to step up into a leading role in it, will fall to the pastor. Be ready to address this. Especially if there are things that need doing at church that you haven't been able to keep up with.

Tenth question (and last one for now): "What does our church gain from doing this?" Answer that as best you can.

Weather Delays

So yesterday (Tuesday), our daughter was trying to get back from a vacation in New York City and found herself stuck in an aircraft waiting to get out of LaGuardia Airport.

It's frustrating. Frustrating for her, stuck in a plane. Frustrating for her roommate who is supposed to pick her up at the Little Rock Airport later tonight. Frustrating for her parents who want her home where she will, allegedly, be safer and sounder.

As I write, she's here.

And the thing is, we have more information about such things now than we have had for years before. I can pull up a picture of where the plane is waiting, I can find weather radar information, I can even access history of how quick the flight usually takes. (Note: it's usually quicker than the allotted time, by at least half-an-hour!)

Anticipated routing.

You know what I cannot do?

Change the weather. Or adjust the basic reality of life that taking off in an Airbus 321 in the middle of a thunderstorm line is just a bad idea.

We like to say that knowledge is power, but ultimately, no matter how knowledgeable we are, we remain powerless in the face of many things. 

Now, eventually, all such things can be considered "first world problems" and we should just get over them. I would suggest that, instead, we should see these as the same basic human problems as ever:

No matter how much we know, we have limits. Limits that we cannot exceed or change.

The real challenge is living within them and giving others space to live inside theirs. That takes grace. We need to have enough for us, which God gives, so that we have plenty to pass on to others until they know God's grace fully.

Ministry Chronicles: Sending Church Step 1

Here at Mt. Olive Baptist Church in Ashley County, Arkansas, we just took the step of voting to work together with SEND Network: Arkansas and a group in El Dorado, Arkansas. We're going to be the "sending church" for this group as they build on the ministry of Southside Baptist, El Dorado, and launch a new church from that now-closed church.

One part of what I want to do is chronicle here this process and what we do. Here, let's hit the basics:

First, Mt. Olive is not a large church. We have a large building, but we are a very typical Southern Baptist traditional church: mostly we're adults over 50, with a small number of people that fit in the "young adult" category. We're struggling to connect with youth and children going back to a church split back in the COVID-era. Our budget isn't wide open with lots of space; we've had to trim positions and activities pretty seriously in the last decade.

I'll also say something here that isn't meant to be negative self-talk, just honesty: our pastor (me) isn't one of those "amazing" pastors who can triple a church with his energy and charisma. He's not a great "people person" but more of a teacher and equipper-type. He's not well-connected with all the great and amazing cool preachers and groups in Baptist life, either. 

Now, first question: How did we get involved in this?

I went to an event called "Sending Lab" from Send Network: Arkansas (which is the church-planting collaboration between Arkansas Baptists and the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board). The main reason I went was to find some ideas that might possibly help us get our church moving in the right direction.

A couple of weeks later, one of the ABSC guys reached out to me and asked if our church would consider being the official "sending church" for a group that was at Sending Lab. They were working on finding ideas and setting up their new church to include sending out missionaries to start churches from the very beginning.

I'm always willing to ask a question. I may get shot down. But it's worth asking.

Here's the important part of step 1 in this process:

Prayer. A lot of prayer. First, by myself and my wife as we prayed about how to introduce the idea to our church.

After all, it's helpful to remember that if your church has never done something before, they will not understand what is being asked of them. And uncertainty is the foe of commitment. (I know there are some "experts" who will say that I should be so effective as a leader that folks will follow without certainty, simply trusting my judgment. See above.)

After Ann and I prayed about this, I brought it first to our deacons. Our church still runs a fairly traditional organizational model: if the deacons aren't for it, it's not happening. I shared the information with them, encouraged them to pray, and asked them for their questions.

Then, we shared the information with the church and gave them time to pray and set a designated point to ask questions about the process. 

Finally, after several weeks of working through that as the process, we actually voted in a normal business meeting that we would make this commitment.

This may seem like it was longer than it should have been, but the church is supposed to work together in serving the Lord Jesus Christ. If you cannot take the time to pray through and find a basic floor of unity in the church, you may just be doing it wrong.

That's the summary of how we are moving from "not involved in church planting" to "starting to be involved directly in church planting."

Next up, I'll walk through some of the questions that were brought up here about our involvement.

Sermon Recap for July 26 2026

 Good morning! 2 weeks in a row. Remember, progress in small steps is still progress.

Here is what you’ll find: there is an audio player with the sermon audios built-in to it, just click to find the one you want. You’ll also find the embedded YouTube videos of each sermon.

If you’d like, you can subscribe to the audio feed here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/DougHibbardPodcast

Audible Link is https://www.audible.com/podcast/Doug-Hibbard-Sermons-and-Thoughts/B08JJND2RP  https://bit.ly/3WnLNR2

Spotify is here: https://doughibbard.libsyn.com/spotify

The video is linked on my personal YouTube Page here: https://www.youtube.com/user/dheagle93

Sermons are stockpiled here: http://www.doughibbard.com/search/label/Sermons

Sermon Recap July 19 2026

Well, I took a break. Various things happened, I was still preaching, but my cardiac health decided to go nuts this spring. That after our son's lung decided to go flat and require surgery this winter. Seems fair to say that a long-neglected blog was...allowed to continue its neglected status. However, as long as the bits will travel through the tubes, I will occasionally try again with the blog. This is what you get when the same guy that does the sermons also has to do the social media.

Keep in mind that this audio player will let you subscribe to the audio through a classic podcast feed or you can search "Doug Hibbard: Sermons and Thoughts" on Audible, Apple, and Amazon Music to subscribe. You can also just click back through here. Which is handy, if you want the whole sermon series.

Meanwhile, there's always YouTube. If you want to see me flub the word "Commendation" and sub in "Condemnation," an oops that totally changes the sentence, that's here:

That will also take you to the channel that has the video backlist.

Thanks for reading! My goal is to be back before 6 months next time.