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This paper explores the use of a social robot to facilitate family-school partnerships by supporting home-based activities and communication. A robot system was co-designed with parents and children and then deployed in 10 homes for a week-long study. Results highlight how families integrated the robot into daily routines, the influence of parental facilitation, and perceived benefits and challenges, providing design implications for child-robot interactions in this context.
A social robot can successfully integrate into family life to support family-school partnerships, but parental facilitation styles significantly impact its effectiveness.
Family-school partnerships (FSP) are critical to children's development, yet families often face barriers such as time constraints, fragmented communication, and limited opportunities for meaningful engagement. As a step toward facilitating broader family-school partnerships, we explore a novel approach that integrates a social robot into family settings, specifically supporting home-based activities. Through interviews and co-design sessions, we designed and developed a robotic system informed by both parents and children, that supported, among other interactions, family communication about school topics. We evaluated the robot in a week-long, in-home study with 10 families. Our findings show how families integrated the robot into daily life, how parental facilitation styles shaped use, and how families perceived both the helpfulness and challenges of the robot. We contribute empirical insights, a modular system, and design implications for family- and child-robot interactions. We discuss ethical and privacy considerations, and broaden the design space for technologies supporting family-school partnerships.
