Parental Ethnotheories About Children’s Information-Seeking: Examining Children’s Questions and Parents’ Responses

Parental ethnotheories, or cultural beliefs and mindsets about child-rearing, are known to shape parenting practices, yet little is known about how these beliefs relate to children’s everyday question-asking. Across two studies using an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design, this research aimed (a) to develop a context-specific measure of parental ethnotheories related to children’s questions and (b) to examine whether these beliefs predict children’s question-asking and parents’ responses.In Study 1, the Parental Ethnotheory Scenarios (PES) were developed based on in-depth interviews with parents from diverse backgrounds (N = 22). Exploratory factor analysis with a larger sample of parents (N = 205) yielded an 11-item, three-factor structure reflecting Social Norms and Compliance, Guided Learning and Autonomy Support, and Regulation of Curiosity and Screen Use. Reliability analyses indicated good internal consistency for the Social Norms and Compliance factor and acceptable consistency for the Guided Learning and Autonomy Support factor. The regulation factor showed low reliability and was retained as two theoretically relevant single items. PES subscales demonstrated expected associations with established parenting goals and child-rearing practices, supporting convergent validity.In Study 2, associations between parental ethnotheories, children’s questions, and parents’ responses were examined using mixed-effects models (N = 148). Parents endorsing autonomy-supportive beliefs were more likely to have children who asked fact-seeking questions and were more likely to provide elaborative responses. In contrast, parents emphasizing compliance-oriented beliefs tended to provide shorter and less informative responses, and greater difficulty with frequent questioning was associated with fewer fact-seeking questions. Together, these findings demonstrate that context-specific parental ethnotheories represent a valid and meaningful construct that predicts real-world parent–child question–answer interactions.