Don’t Buy AI Toys for Kids this Holiday Season

A guest essay from Dr. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek

Thanks for reading Raising Good Humans on Substack! My first book, The Five Principles of Parenting: Your Essential Guide to Raising Good Humans is now available for purchase here.

Photo by Jess Bailey on Unsplash

The shopping flurry is hard to avoid. The holidays are rapidly approaching and the temptation to buy, buy, buy is EVERYWHERE. Perfect timing for an episode of Raising Good Humans on the power of play, and a brilliant guest article from Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Ph.D., professor at Temple University, Senior Fellow Brookings, author of Einstein Never Used Flashcards (winner of both the Best Psychology Book and the Books for a Better Life Award), and the NYT Bestselling, Becoming Brilliant. As is clear from our conversation, we still have so much to learn and appreciate about the power of play - if only we can get out of our own way as parents.

In the conversation on the episode (listen HERE), Kathy and I talk about the ways that play and exploration can support our children’s development - and the incredible role she plays as a grandmother who gets to champion play with her grandkids (this is a great one to recommend for a grandparent in your life). We also discuss how play can even protect them from a future filled with AI (it is easier than you think)! However, for this guest piece, Kathy is taking on AI toys for children - something I didn’t even know existed. As with all things AI, there is so much for us to learn, understand, and discuss around this topic. I hope you learn a thing or two here, and I know there will be more to say. Enjoy!

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Don’t Buy AI Toys for Kids this Holiday Season

By Dr. Kathy Hirsh-Pasek

In June of 2025, news outlets buzzed with the announcement that Open AI would partner with Mattel to create a new generation of toys. There was an air of excitement as companies pondered what it would be like to create stuffed animals that had conversations with 4-year olds and robots that could effectively act upon a child’s command.

As toy companies in the US and China dreamed of the possibilities, top scientists and pediatricians who study early brain growth, social development, and play sounded an alarm!

These scientists and pediatricians are not anti tech. They have studied the role that human-to-human interactions have on the way brains develop and the way infants and young children grow to be socially engaged, smart and happy adults. AI companions have already “tricked” teens and adults with unhealthy results. A report out of Stanford University notes that simulating human interaction exploits teenagers who try to fulfill their emotional needs. And a piece from the journal Nature speaks to how adults are turning to AI companions to help them feel less lonely.

For babies and toddlers, the science speaks to even more potential danger. It is possible that baby brains can be tricked just like those who converse with AI companions. We know that human-to-human conversations filled with emotion, touch, smell and non-verbal gestures help to build the brain structure and brain connectivity in young children. The back-and-forth conversations sometimes called “serve and return” build the foundation for learning language which in turn feeds literacy and math. What if, baby brains can be derailed?

We know that babies and toddlers actively seek that human-to-human conversations and they reward adults with smiles and coos, all of which knit together to help children become social attentive and responsive.

For the preschool set, some of these new toys can be fun. Robots move at your command, and toys imitate everything that you say. But let the buyer beware. AI toys are already flooding the market and they are BIG business. A Newsweek article from mid-November estimates that this is a 34 billion dollar business!

The Consumer Watchdog US PIRG tested some of the first toys on the market that promised to be “companions” for our little ones and promised to make parenting “easier.” Though some of the products like Folo, Grok, and BubblePal promised to be for teens, the marketing photos designed to sell the product showed photographs of 4-and 5-year olds playing with a teddy bear. Folo, in particular promises: “My first AI friend who listens and grows.”

The Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) report was literally eye-opening. To quote directly,

“When evaluating AI toys, one of the clearest red flags we found is toys that may allow children to access inappropriate content, such as instructions on how to find harmful items in the home or age-inappropriate information about drugs and sex.

To be fair, some toys did a bit better than others and these toys will get better with time when guardrails are added. Europe is far ahead of the US and China in regulating AI for kid banning “cognitive behavioral manipulation of people or specific vulnerable groups: for example- activated toys that encourage dangerous behavior in children.”

We are at the dawning of a new era. AI is infiltrating every area of family life. Opportunities for better game play, learning, and interaction are everywhere. Yet, the business imperative to bring these toys to market often outpaces the scientists ability to study the impact of these toys on your children. Given our best data and best guesses from past research, over 270 scientists and pediatricians have signed onto our petition warning parents about the new AI toys as the encroach into early childhood. AI toys may someday supplement the way we engage and learn, but they must not ever substitute for the intricate human-to-human interactions that are currency of our species. To date, they are just not ready for prime time.

Read more from the statement Kathy co-authored HERE.

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