Household chemicals and pre-schoolers: Caretakers’ beliefs and perspectives on risks and responsibilities

Seeing household chemicals through the eyes of children—Investigating influential factors of preschoolers’ perception and behavior

“…RQ1: To what extent do preschoolers mistake laundry pods and dishwasher tabs as something edible, and is this effect even stronger if these products are stored with other food items rather than with household chemical products? Finally, we investigated the effect of three self-reported parental beliefs concerning household chemicals that were identified in a previous study: protective parental beliefs, educational parental beliefs, and pragmatic/trusting parental beliefs (Bearth et al, 2022). These three parental beliefs were related to the parents' behavior concerning household chemicals.…”

“…Lastly, parental beliefs on household chemicals might influence how parents teach and shape their children's experiences with household chemicals. These parental beliefs can be described as a broad set of attitudes and convictions about the risks and hazards of household chemicals (Bearth et al, 2022). To our knowledge, few studies have investigated the effects of parental beliefs on unintentional injuries, particularly concerning household chemicals (Morrongiello et al, 2014;Schwebel et al, 2004).…”

“…Based on the above-mentioned categorization processes (Rakison & Lupyan, 2008;Sloutsky, 2003), we assume that children may have difficulties correctly categorizing household chemicals depending on how similar they are to other products or the associations children have with the storage context. Therefore, we focused on dishwasher tabs and laundry pods because these tabs and pods are often described as candy-like and stored close to their point of use (i.e., in the context of food items) instead of a cleaning cabinet (i.e., in the context of household chemicals; Bearth et al, 2022;Valdez et al, 2014):…”

“…These three parental beliefs were related to the parents' behavior concerning household chemicals. Parents with strong protective beliefs are likelier to control the environment and keep household chemicals away from their children (Bearth et al, 2022). Parents with strong educational beliefs are likelier to educate children on safe use and let children have experiences with household chemicals (Bearth et al, 2022).…”

“…Parents with strong protective beliefs are likelier to control the environment and keep household chemicals away from their children (Bearth et al, 2022). Parents with strong educational beliefs are likelier to educate children on safe use and let children have experiences with household chemicals (Bearth et al, 2022). Parents with strong pragmatic or trusting beliefs were less concerned about controlling access to household chemicals, thinking that children are not interested in these products in general (Bearth et al, 2022).…”