Building AI Literacy at Home: How Families Navigate Children's Self-Directed Learning with AI

TL;DR

This study explores how families support children's AI literacy through self-directed learning, highlighting evolving parental roles, gaps in understanding, and the importance of co-learning to balance autonomy and oversight.

Contribution

It provides new insights into family dynamics in children's AI literacy development and offers design implications for fostering self-directed learning at home.

Findings

Parents view AI mainly as a study tool, with limited awareness of its risks.

Families engage in joint exploration to support children's AI understanding.

Tensions exist between practical use and critical awareness of AI in family contexts.

Abstract

As generative AI becomes embedded in children's learning spaces, families face new challenges in guiding its use. Middle childhood (ages 7-13) is a critical stage where children seek autonomy even as parental influence remains strong. Using self-directed learning (SDL) as a lens, we examine how parents perceive and support children's developing AI literacy through focus groups with 13 parent-child pairs. Parents described evolving phases of engagement driven by screen time, self-motivation, and growing knowledge. While many framed AI primarily as a study tool, few considered its non-educational roles or risks, such as privacy and infrastructural embedding. Parents also noted gaps in their own AI understanding, often turning to joint exploration and engagement as a form of co-learning. Our findings reveal how families co-construct children's AI literacy, exposing tensions between practical expectations and critical literacies, and provide design implications that foster SDL while balancing autonomy and oversight.