For better or worse, parents are human beings, and (even unconsciously) may stigmatize behaviors or feelings that a child may experience, making it difficult for the child to bring up these issues with the parents.
There is also the case where children may be neurologically atypical in a way that makes interacting with other humans difficult. This is another opportunity for a robot to shine.
You're not wrong -- helping children develop social and soft skills does fall under the job description of being a good parent. But even parents with the best intentions may need help from time to time, and I would argue that a parent who can recognize the value in something like this (as a supplement, not a replacement for parenting) has the child's best interests in mind.
As a society, this should be a common aim -- to 'socialize' our children.
Growing up, albeit not in the US, strangers would scold us kids for being noisy/bratty/destructive/etc. And our parents would be on the stranger's side, adding their two cents on top.
Can't imagine that today. IMO the loss of the freedom to treat your local neighborhood as one big, loosely connected family (as a child and adult) is one of the biggest reasons for increase in depression, anxiety and lack of social/soft skills. Another reason is that local neighborhoods are few and far between because of how we've structured our cities.
BTW, my son actually has a mild ASD diagnosis, and well, I will try to help him not to feel bad about himself, but I also expect to help him get more social skills as I have seen first hand how useful they are.
When I wrote the comment, I was remembering a coworker whose nephew had ASD, and could not process spoken word from his family well. They discovered that using the "say" command on an OSX Terminal to make the computer "talk" was something that did work for communicating, and the boy would listen to the computer's advice for when it was time for bed or time to brush his teeth.
It was not my intention to perpetuate dehumanizing stereotypes, so I apologize if it came across this way. Rather, I was trying to emphasize the positive impact of having more parenting tools in your metaphorical tool belt.
At the risk of sounding ignorant again, I would argue that good hygiene and sleep are habits that everybody should build, regardless of your neurological disposition :)
But I can see it being very helpful for children with various social disorders like autism. I don't have personal experience with this, but what I hear from parents with children who have such issues, is that they try to socialize their kids, but at best other children distance themselves from them, at worst they get bullied and pushed away. There's a chicken and egg problem there. I think a robot that is infinitely patient, reinforces healthy interactions, and provides a level of emotional support can definitely help in jump starting positive behavior.
But at the same time, it has to be very accurate and perceptive in its interactions, otherwise it's obviously not a human, and might impede development in other ways.
For many the first time they are "unsupervised" is legal adulthood, where college, military or employment forces social interactions in dimensions their young lives willfully resisted preparing them for. Why talk, when you can text?
I've struggled with that aspect of child rearing with my 6 y/o since she was able to speak. She is far more willing to learn at a deep level from teachers than from us, even though her mother is an experienced elementary school teacher.
Parents are not superheroes that know it all or can do it all.
Ideally, yes. But rather than focus on what parents should be doing, let's consider what parents are doing and how that affects the wellbeing of their kids. Should we give up on kids with bad parents, or should our society aim to diminish the impact of bad parenting?
That's not what these robots are.