CONCEPT
Session Structure
The design principle that AI interactions should have built-in duration limits and transitions — imposing the alternation between AI-assisted and unassisted work that self-regulation alone cannot reliably provide.
Session structure is the third principle of developmentally aware AI design. A tool designed for a developing brain imposes structure on the interaction rather than leaving structure to the user's self-regulation — because self-regulation is precisely the executive function capacity the developing brain has not yet fully built. Sessions have defined durations. A session concludes with prompted reflection: What did you learn? What would you do differently? The reflection is followed by a transition to unassisted work. The alternation between AI-assisted and unassisted engagement is built into the tool's design rather than assumed to emerge from the child's choices. Asking a child to self-regulate her use of a supernormally stimulating tool is asking her to exercise the capacity the tool's overuse may be preventing her from developing.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The principle responds to a specific failure mode documented in You On AI and in the Berkeley workplace studies: continuous AI engagement colonizes pauses that would otherwise serve as cognitive rest. Adults with