Understanding Parents' Complex Views of AI for Children's Pretend Play

Abstract

AI could support children's pretend play, but it could also direct the play on behalf of children. Whether AI should have roles in children's lives is controversial because its influence on children remains uncertain. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 U.S. parents, each with at least one child aged 4-15. During the interview, we described the concept of AI-supported pretend play and provided participants with two boundary-case storyboards. We analyzed the interview data through codebook thematic analysis, using inductive coding and affinity diagramming organized around the research questions, and then used qualitative systems mapping to examine relationships within and across themes. We found that the same characteristics of AI, e.g., ability to assume characters, responsiveness, and adaptability, were seen by parents as potentially useful but also concerning. Parents imagined that AI could make role-based play accessible to all children or help parents participate in family play. However, they opposed the idea of AI for children's play without a clear understanding of how it works and its long-term influence on their children. Parents worried about children's loss of imagination and creativity, emotional attachment to AI, reduced human interaction, inappropriate behavior by AI and/or children, and their inability to manage children's AI use. Parents viewed AI not only as a play tool but also as a social actor and a possible perturbation in the existing family dynamics. The appropriateness of AI and child--AI interactions therefore emerged as a requirement for AI in children's pretend play, in addition to technical safeguards and parental control. We contribute an integrated account of parents' interdependent judgments and emphasize the need for longitudinal research with children and their diverse families.