Hey Alexa, what are you teaching my children?

As a mother raising her six-year-old daughter, Boo, on her own, Rosie Corriette is used to having the last word. But ever since the arrival of a new helper at her -Sussex home last Christmas - a voice-activated Google Home assistant - she has discovered she is no longer the ultimate authority.

"When I told Boo to put her coat on the other day, she said: 'I don't need it!'," says Corriette, 29. "When I insisted, she said our Google Home had told her it wasn't that cold outside and wasn't going to rain. At that point, I had to explain that while Google Home might know the weather and the -temperature, as a mother I knew she would catch her death of cold!"

While they might have started out as a gimmick, digital home assistants, which also include Amazon Echo and Apple HomePod, have become virtual family members in three million UK homes in the past couple of years. After all, who wouldn't want a hands-free digital butler who instantly responds to your voice commands - and can answer any question you may have when your children are running you ragged?

Yet it's becoming clear that virtual assistants come with strings attached. Some parents have been taken aback by the way these disembodied voices have been appropriated by young children - making them more curious and independent, but also more impatient because they can get any answer instantly without so much as a please or a thank you.

So just as parents had to get to grips with the effects of screen time, do we now need to get a handle on this new wave of screen-free technology before it races ahead and out of our control?

Hunter Walk, a former Google executive, wrote in a blog post last year that his Amazon Echo was turning his four-year-old daughter into a brat - "because Alexa [the voice operating system that answers questions] tolerates poor manners. The prompt command is, 'Alexa...' not 'Alexa, please...'. And Alexa doesn't require a 'thank you' before it's ready to perform another task. Cognitively, I'm not sure a kid gets why you can boss Alexa around but not a person."

"It creates patterns and reinforcement," he added, "that you can get what you want without niceties."

Leaving the house is not the only time Corriette, who writes the blog mummyandboo.com, finds herself pitted against the gadget with the soothing voice and who is never too busy to reply. "At other times, Boo will ask me a maths question. She will say: 'What is 47,000 divided by seven?' I see it a challenge because I did maths at A-level, but she will then pit my answer against Google.

It worries me that my daughter will go to the device for more complex emotional issues

Corriette's experience chimes with a new survey by online retailer Moonpig, which found that 38 per cent of mothers say their child would seek answers to some questions from a tech device, rather than them. So is this the start of a slippery slope in which children turn to gadgets rather than busy parents?

Mum-of-five Emma Chanagasubbay from Surrey got her 11-year-old daughter Isabella a Google Home Mini for Christmas, and has become concerned that Isabella will start to ask it questions about friendship, relationships or sex, that only a parent can properly answer. "It worries me that she will go to it for more complex emotional -issues," says Chanagasubbay, 38, who writes the blog thejoyoffive.com. "If she asks the device a nuanced question, she's just going to get a matter-of-fact answer, or one that could be misconstrued - not the one she really needs."

Other parents, however, see the gadgets as a force for good. Gill Crawshaw, 38, finds her Amazon Echo devices indispensable when she's got her hands full with daughters Eliza, six and Florence, three. She has three - in the living room, kitchen and master bedroom of her house in Bromley, Kent. For Crawshaw, it's a "personal DJ" for kitchen discos and even cuts back on the time that her daughters spend on screens - because they now spend more time listening to music than watching television programmes or films.

Crawshaw, who writes the parenting blog ababyonboard.com, says the gadgets also act as unofficial babysitters, "setting alarms for things like screen time and bed time and also getting out of the house in the morning".

They even come in useful as an impartial referee in sibling disputes.

"If the girls disagree about what to watch on television we will ask Alexa to settle the dispute using the 'heads or tails' function. They never disagree with the verdict."

So are these gadgets undermining our authority as parents or freeing up time to make parenting less stressful - something that can only be good for children? Professor Kaveri Subrahmanyam, a developmental psychologist and chair of child and family studies at California State University, says: "Within limits, virtual assistants can be useful in helping children find the answer to their questions. But there is some evidence that if they know where the answer is and it's so easy to find, they don't hold that information in their minds. That in itself is not bad - but it is if it also leads to a loss of critical thinking.

DIGITAL ASSISTANTS | GOOD PRACTICE

"Accepting Google's answer unquestioningly then becomes problematic, especially as we are learning that answers to internet search queries can be manipulated."

Prof Subrahmanyam also raises concerns about how such devices can interrupt parent/child interaction.

"The use of any device - whether by parent or child - has the potential to interrupt meaningful conversations. And that is a legitimate worry if the assistant can provide more answers than the parents themselves.

"There are also concerns that interactions with these devices do not have emotional nuances and other face-to-face cues - and we really don't yet know what the consequences will be if children interact with them from a very early age and for too long."

For Corriette, who has sometimes been surprised to see her daughter, Boo, treat the disembodied voice coming out of her Google Home like "an equal" in conversation, it's a matter of waiting and seeing.

"Overall I hope it will make her more curious. But when she reaches her teenage years, if starts using it to argue her side about curfews, then I will have to show it the door."