ChatGPT’s promised parental alerts face a disputed safety test. On October 7, Common Sense Media rated the teen version an unacceptable risk and urged OpenAI to limit access to adults until its protections improve. Researchers posing as teenagers reported that new, parent-linked accounts produced no alerts during crisis conversations lasting up to an hour. These were simulated tests, not accounts of children being harmed. OpenAI disputed the findings, telling AP that much of the testing may have ended before parental controls had fully activated. Common Sense says it also recorded failures beyond that activation window. The disagreement leaves families with competing accounts of when a safety feature becomes dependable.

Parents who link an account may reasonably assume that an urgent warning can reach them. A delay changes what that setting means, especially during a first disclosure that has no weeks of conversation history behind it. The test therefore raises a practical demand for the interface. It should state when monitoring becomes active and explain the limits of an alert, without borrowing the reassurance of a human adult watching the conversation. Independent checks need to distinguish a newly linked account from one that has been monitored for days. A family deciding whether to permit the chatbot needs that difference displayed where it switches parental notifications on.