5 ways Google parents are using Gemini

As the old aphorism goes, it takes a village to raise a child. But as a (relatively) new parent, I’ve found that you don’t always have a village handy to help with the seemingly infinite things that crop up when parenting: planning playdates, keeping up with pediatrician visits, figuring out how to travel with a months-old baby and more.

But sometimes, technology can fill in the gaps. Last year, when my wife and I were planning our first real vacation with our daughter — a long weekend in Portland, Maine — we asked Gemini for help with travel planning: “Create a four-day long weekend itinerary for Portland, Maine, for two adults and a 9-month-old baby. Build in time for naps and only recommend kid-friendly places to eat.”

Unfortunately, Gemini can’t physically go and change a diaper or clean up a spilled bowl of yogurt. But by taking on the mental load of travel planning — suggesting activities, scheduling in our daughter’s nap and recommending kid-friendly places to eat — it freed us up to better focus on the important things in life, like enjoying our vacation as a family.

Inspired by that success, I asked other parents at Google how they’re using Gemini to bring some more order to the chaos of children. Here are five ways it’s been helping out.

It’s no secret that Gemini is a whiz when it comes to math and science, and we’ve added lots of ways for students to learn with Gemini both at school and at home.

Rekha Karthikeyan uses Gemini to prep her 11-year-old for school exams using the quiz features in the app. “I import the school curriculum and then ask Gemini to generate quizzes to help him check his knowledge,” she says. Gemini can ask probing questions to help you work through problems step-by-step, instead of just getting the answer.

And Michelle Behr is using Gemini with her daughter — who wants to become a dermatologist — to explore potential college paths. “We used Gemini to help us understand college majors she may consider for undergrad as she prepares for med school, what are the best schools to think about to support the overall path and more,” says Michelle.

One of the most popular Gemini use cases for parents? Taking on the Sisyphean task of wrangling the ever-shifting school calendars, sleep schedules and screen time usage for kids.

Kerrie Hogan simply uploaded what she describes as a “gnarly PDF of Oakland’s middle school flag football schedule,” asked Gemini to pull out her child’s team’s games and put them on her calendar in just a few clicks. And Clara de Soto used the deep integration between Gemini, Gmail and Calendar for more targeted prompts, like: “Look up emails from [school name] and class moms [names]. Add relevant dates to my calendar, to-do lists to my Keep and reminders to Tasks.”

Kate Thoren has also used Gemini to help her daughter — who has a neurodevelopmental disability — with custom social stories for when they’re doing new things. “We've used Gemini to create a visual schedule for her therapy and weekends, and incorporate her favorite things like unicorns and rainbows in images,” Kate says.

It can be tough dealing with a picky eater, and plenty of Googlers are using Gemini to help.

Beth Vanderkolk shared how she uses Gemini to plan family-friendly dinners. “I have Gemini create weekly meal plans, share recipes, create grocery lists and more using a custom prompt,” she says. “And my kids are really liking this approach!”

Meanwhile, newer parent Shruti Sridhar has been using Gemini to help introduce solids, together with guidance from her pediatrician. “I used Gemini to create a detailed meal plan on how I could effectively and safely introduce solids,” Shruti says. “The structured plan has been working incredibly well for us.”

As I discovered in my own experience, Gemini is an incredible travel planner for finding activities for kids, whether you’re on a staycation or traveling around the world. Other parents at Google agree.

Dnyanada Arjunwadkar uses Gemini to create lists of all the kid-friendly activities happening in all her nearby public libraries across several Bay Area cities, along with each library’s hours, when she’s looking for something to do with her kids.

And Keren Rastogi has used Gemini to create complete itineraries for multiple international trips. “I found it incredibly helpful for identifying age-appropriate and child-friendly activities, places to stay and modes of transportation,” she says.

The most common way parents who responded to my query were using Gemini? Taking advantage of Nano Banana’s image-generation capabilities to create unique stories, games and coloring book pages to entertain their kids.

David German made a favorite family board game kid-friendly by having Gemini generate gameplay cards at a first-grade reading level. “I have never seen my kid so excited to sound out words!” he says. And Sushma Nadella creates challenging questions and puzzles for her 10- and 7-year-olds for long road trips.

Meanwhile, Ryan Compton is planning to use Gemini to try and get a competitive leg up for family game nights. “My son has been beating me in our fantasy card battling game, so I’m going to upload photos of his decks into Gemini to see if it could help me come up with a better strategy to beat him,” Ryan says.