The Robot That Stayed: Understanding How Children and Families Engage with a Retired Social Robot

Zhao Zhao^1*Rhonda McEwen²

• ¹University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada
• ²University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, Canada

As social robots enter domestic spaces, they are often framed as short-term educational or entertainment tools for children. Yet their physical presence and social roles may persist far beyond their initial function. This retrospective follow-up study investigates how families engage with a child-focused educational robot four years after its deployment. We revisited 19 families who participated in a 2021 in-home study involving a reading companion robot for preschoolers. By 2025, although the children had outgrown the robot’s instructional content, 18 families had retained the robot, repurposing or preserving it in ways that extended its social life. Through in-depth interviews, we found that the robot transitioned from a learning tool to a symbolic household member—treated with emotional attachment, care-taking behaviors, and even affection. Families integrated the robot into new routines, reframed it as a memory object or family mascot, and in some cases, passed it on with ceremony akin to a "retirement."We identify three central themes that explain the robot’s enduring presence: emotional attachment and personification, symbolic and nostalgic value, and practical repurposing within household routines. Our findings contribute to long-term human–robot interaction (HRI) literature, extending domestication theory and emphasizing the need to design social robots with life cycles in mind—including end-of-life transitions. By capturing the emotional, cultural, and developmental trajectories that shape a robot’s afterlife in the home, this study highlights how robots can become meaningful companions and artifacts of family identity—long after their functional use has ended.