This paper describes the initial steps towards the design of a robotic system
that intends to perform actions autonomously in a naturalistic play
environment. At the same time it aims for social human-robot interaction~(HRI),
focusing on children. We draw on existing theories of child development and on
dimensional models of emotions to explore the design of a dynamic interaction
framework for natural child-robot interaction. In this dynamic setting, the
social HRI is defined by the ability of the system to take into consideration
the socio-emotional state of the user and to plan appropriately by selecting
appropriate strategies for execution. The robot needs a temporal planning
system, which combines features of task-oriented actions and principles of
social human robot interaction. We present initial results of an empirical
study for the evaluation of the proposed framework in the context of a
collaborative sorting game
