Why Kids Stop Asking Questions (And the One-Sentence Habit That Keeps Them Curious)

If your child used to ask "why" about everything and has recently gone quiet, it's worth paying attention to what happens around them, not just to them. A study published in the September/October 2026 issue of Child Development found that a single overheard comment about a child's question-asking, positive or negative, can measurably change how often a nearby child asks questions of their own.

The finding is narrower and more specific than most curiosity advice you'll come across, and that specificity is what makes it useful.

The study: what researchers actually did

Researchers Li Zhao, Sihuan Zhu and Junjie Peng, working out of Hangzhou Normal University and the University of Toronto, ran three separate experiments with 440 children aged five and six. In each one, a child overheard a brief comment, made during what appeared to be an adult's phone call, about another child's behavior. Then the child was given a task involving unfamiliar objects, designed to naturally prompt curiosity, and researchers recorded whether the child asked a question about it.

The comments fell into different categories: some praised or criticized the other child as a person ("she's a great kid"), some praised or criticized the quality of their questions ("she asks really smart questions"), and some praised or criticized the behavior of asking questions itself ("she asks a lot of questions" — said approvingly or dismissively). A neutral, unrelated comment served as the control.

What they found

The behavior-focused comments were the ones that moved the needle. Comments about the child as a person, or about how good their questions were, had no measurable effect either way.

• When children overheard a brief, positive comment about another child's question-asking behavior, 60% went on to ask a question themselves, compared with 27.5% in the neutral-control group.
• When children overheard a brief negative comment about question-asking behavior, only 27.5% asked a question, compared with 52.5% in the control group.
• A third, preregistered study replicated the pattern across two different tasks: positive comments increased question-asking by roughly 2.6 times, and negative comments reduced it by roughly 3.6 times.

The sample was 440 middle-class children from kindergartens in eastern China, so it's worth holding the exact numbers loosely rather than assuming they'd land identically in every setting. But the direction and size of the effect were consistent across three separate experiments, which gives the pattern real weight.

Why this matters more than it might seem to

Most advice about encouraging curiosity focuses on how you respond when your own child asks you something directly. This study is about something quieter: the comments a child overhears that aren't even addressed to them. A sigh and an "again with the questions" aimed at a sibling. A teacher's offhand remark about a classmate who "always has a question." A grandparent chuckling that a cousin "never stops asking why."

None of those comments are said to the child listening in. But according to this research, the child is still absorbing a signal about whether asking questions is welcomed or mildly tiresome, and adjusting their own behavior accordingly. The researchers frame this through a few established ideas in child development: children respond more to feedback about something they can control (a behavior) than feedback about who they are as a person, and they use small social cues to judge whether it's socially safe to admit they don't know something and ask about it.

That second point is worth sitting with. Asking a question is, in a small way, a social risk — it means admitting you don't already know. Children appear to be quietly tracking how that risk gets treated around them, not just in their own direct interactions but in everything they overhear.

What this means for the classroom and the family

The study's authors made their point directly: a teacher's aside to one student can shape whether an entire classroom feels safe asking questions, because other children are listening even when the comment isn't meant for them. The same logic applies at home, especially in a house with more than one child.

A few practical takeaways follow fairly directly from the findings:

Praise the asking, not just the child or the question. "I love that you asked that" lands differently, and appears to do more, than "you're so smart" or "great question." The study found the behavior-focused comment was the one that moved the needle — the identity-focused and quality-focused comments didn't.

Watch what you say about one child's questions in front of another. A tired "not more questions" sighed at your first child while your second child is in earshot may be quietly teaching the second child that asking isn't welcome, even though nothing was said to them directly.

Say it out loud sometimes, even if it feels performative. If your child asks something and you think "good question" without saying it, a sibling or classmate nearby doesn't get the benefit of overhearing it. Narrating your approval, at least occasionally, extends its effect beyond the child you're talking to.

Notice how questions get treated around screens, TV and other adults too. If a child regularly overhears impatience with questions in general — in the car, at the dinner table, from other caregivers — that adds up across many small moments, even if you personally handle it well.

None of this requires a script or a special occasion. It's the kind of adjustment that fits into an ordinary afternoon: one sentence, said or not said, in front of the right or wrong set of ears.

Where this fits into everyday moments

A lot of the ordinary back-and-forth that builds this habit doesn't need to be engineered. Dinner table conversation, a shared book, a walk where your child asks what something is — all of these are chances to notice and say "good question" out loud, in front of whoever happens to be listening.

A screen-free conversational toy is another low-stakes place this can play out. Tovuli is a soft yellow interactive AI plush built for exactly this kind of back-and-forth: a child asks something, gets a response, and the exchange continues. If a sibling is nearby when your child asks Tovuli a question and you respond with visible interest ("ooh, what did it say?"), that's one more small, repeatable moment where a child within earshot is absorbing the message that asking is welcomed here. It isn't a substitute for how you talk to your children directly, and no single toy or study changes a child's curiosity on its own — but as one more setting where the "praise the asking" habit can show up naturally, it fits comfortably alongside a shared book or a dinner-table question.

The bottom line

If a previously curious child has gone quieter, it's not necessarily about anything you've said to them directly. According to this research, children are also listening to how question-asking gets treated around them in general, and a single sentence, aimed at someone else entirely, can measurably shift whether they keep their hand up. The fix is small: praise the behavior of asking, say it where more than one child can hear it, and be mindful of the offhand sighs that quietly say the opposite.

FAQ

Does this mean I've been doing something wrong if my child stopped asking questions?

Not necessarily. The study is about one contributing factor among many, and it's specifically about overheard comments rather than anything said directly to your child. A quieter child isn't automatically a less curious one; a natural decline in spontaneous question-asking through the school years is also well documented in separate research.

Does praising my own child's questions directly have the same effect?

The study tested overheard comments about another child, not direct praise, so its specific numbers apply to that scenario. It's reasonable to think direct praise for the behavior of asking also helps, since the researchers link the effect to children learning that asking is socially safe and welcomed, but that particular comparison wasn't the focus of this study.

Is it the words I use, or how sincere I sound?

The study measured whether a comment was made at all, not tone or sincerity, so that distinction wasn't tested. Common sense suggests a comment that sounds genuine will land better than one that sounds like a performance, but this is a reasonable inference rather than a tested finding.

Does this apply to older kids too?

The study's sample was five- and six-year-olds. The general mechanism (children monitoring social cues to judge whether it's safe to admit uncertainty) is plausible at other ages too, but this particular study didn't test older children, so it's worth treating that extension as a reasonable guess rather than a proven result.

Meet Tovuli

Tovuli is a screen-free, conversational AI plush designed for everyday play, stories and curiosity-led conversation with a parent nearby. If you would like to see how it works, you can learn more about Tovuli here.