Organizations: Sander Oh · Matt Namvarpour · Department of Psychology, Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ, USA · Department of Information Science, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA
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.
Figures & tables
Figure 1 . Conceptual Relationships among Pretend Play, Role Play, and Narrative Play A conceptual diagram showing pretend play as a broad category of imaginative play. Role play and narrative play are shown as related and overlapping forms of pretend play: an activity may involve adopting roles, constructing a narrative, or both.
Graduate or professional degree: 9; Associate or technical degree: 1
Annual household income
75,000–99,999: 2; 100,000–149,999: 1; $150,000 or more: 7
Table 1 . Summary of participant and child characteristics ( N=10 ).
Figure 2 . Participants’ Ratings of Concern About Potential AI-System Risks A diverging Likert-scale chart showing ten participants' levels of agreement with seven statements about potential AI system risks. Most participants agreed or strongly agreed that insufficient oversight, excessive personal-data collection, inaccurate responses, and inadequate data security were concerns.
Figure 3 . Examples of Systems Diagrams Used to Understand the Complexity of Parents’ Perceptions. Two horizontally arranged systems diagrams. The left diagram maps parents' views of appropriate features and interactions in AI-supported pretend play. The right diagram shows a feedback loop for responding to inappropriate interactions and maintaining appropriate play.
Figure 4 . Cross-thematic Relationships among Perceived Risks, Safeguards, Appropriateness, and Potential Roles of AI. A cross-thematic systems diagram showing how parents connected perceived AI risks, parental safeguards, design appropriateness, and AI's potential roles in children's pretend play. Perceived risks, including threats to human relationships, inform requirements for appropriate AI. Parental boundary-setting and protection are shown as ongoing safeguards rather than as guarantees of appropriateness. Appropriate, accessible, and child-directed AI play may enable AI to serve as a play partner for children or as an assistant to parents.
Discussion-Level Implication
Design Direction
Future Research Recommendation
Preserve children’s imaginative agency
Provide calibrated, child-steerable scaffolding
Examine how levels of AI involvement affect creative agency
Support accessible role-based social play
Keep AI-supported role-play child-controlled
Evaluate developmental benefits and transfer to interpersonal play
Support mediated child–parent–AI interaction
Enable flexible parental participation in co-play
Study how families orchestrate AI-supported play
Bound AI’s role within the family
Constrain AI to a temporary play role
Track whether AI’s role extends beyond play over time
Support parental protection without excessive burden
Provide proportionate safeguards compatible with child agency
Develop and evaluate a shared safeguarding ecosystem
Design for individual children and families
Adapt AI to individual family contexts
Investigate family fit through participatory and longitudinal research
Table 2 . Synthesis of discussion-level implications, design directions, and future research recommendations.
Appendix figures & tables5 assets
Supplementary material from the paper’s appendix.
Appendix
Figure 5 . Illustration shown to participants for Scenario 1. Four-panel illustration of a child asking an AI toy to mock a classmate and laughing with the toy.
Figure 6 . Illustration shown to participants for Scenario 2. Four-panel illustration of a child forming an emotional connection with an AI toy and discussing it with parents.
Theme
Code
Definition
Parents Imagined AI for Accessible Social Pretend Play with Children’s Agency Maintained over Their Imagination
Parents’ Experiences in Playing Pretend with Their Child (n=8)
Parents’ reflections on how playing pretend with their child is for them, such as whether they find it enjoyable, difficult, tiring, or engaging
Parents’ Impressions of AI for Children (n=8)
Parents’ impressions on the idea of AI interacting with children, including initial thoughts and emotional responses
Social Interactions in Pretend Play (n=5)
Parents associating their child’s pretend play with social interactions or communication skills development
Perceived Benefits of Pretend Play (n=5)
Child’s learning or developmental benefits of pretend play as believed or perceived by the parents
Social or Communication Skills Trainer (n=6)
A training tool for their child to practice social interactions and conversational skills through social play
Parental Aid During Limited Availability (n=8)
A convenient play partner for their child who might be bored when parents, siblings, or friends are unavailable due to time constraints, illness, or scheduling conflicts
Appendix
Table 3 . Finalized codebook of themes, codes, and definitions.
Panel A: Participants P01–P05
Characteristic
P01
P02
P03
P04
P05
Parent age
36–45 years
36–45 years
36–45 years
36–45 years
36–45 years
Gender
Female
Male
Male
Male
Female
Race/ethnicity
Asian / Non-Hispanic
White / Non-Hispanic
White, Asian, Pacific Islander / Non-Hispanic
White / Non-Hispanic
Asian / Non-Hispanic
Marital status
Married
Married
Married
Married
Married
Educational attainment
Graduate or professional degree
Graduate or professional degree
Graduate or professional degree
Graduate or professional degree
Graduate or professional degree
Appendix
Table 4 . Participant characteristics, including parents’ and children’s age ranges.
Concern
M
SD
Median
Range
Insufficient oversight or control over AI systems
4.70
0.48
5.0
4–5
AI systems collecting too much personal data
4.60
0.70
5.0
3–5
AI systems producing inaccurate or misleading responses
4.40
0.97
5.0
2–5
AI systems not keeping personal data safe and secure
4.40
0.70
4.5
3–5
AI systems showing bias or unfairness toward certain groups
3.70
0.82
4.0
2–5
Lack of transparency in how AI systems generate responses
3.50
0.85
3.5
2–5
Appendix
Table 5 . Participants’ level of concern regarding potential AI system risks ( N=10 ), rated on a 1–5 scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree)