PURPOSE: to investigate harmful vocal habits referred by dysphonic children and their parents and compare them with data gathered from a control group made up by children with no vocal alterations and their parents. METHOD: twenty-eight dysphonic children, with ages between 6 and 12 year old and their parents, (Study Group - SG) along with 22 children with no vocal alterations, from the same age group, and their parents (Control Group - CG) were investigated. The voices were classified as "healthy" and "unhealthy", depending on the result obtained from the percentage analysis of a spontaneous speech sample. Subjects answered a questionnaire about harmful vocal habits. Tests for comparing two proportions (p <0.05) were used in order to analyze the results. RESULTS: SG children showed a significantly higher number of habits such as speaking with effort, speaking without resting and imitating voices. SG fathers showed a significantly higher number of habits such as clearing the throat, shouting, speaking at the same time as others, in addition to living in smokers' environment. SG mothers significantly showed more habits such as speaking with effort, speaking in noisy environments and speaking too quickly. Living in noisy familiar environments was significantly reported by children, fathers and mothers of SG when compared to those of the CG. CONCLUSION: despite the factors that explain dysphonia, dysphonic children as well as their fathers and mothers reported a higher incidence of harmful vocal habits and living in noisy familiar environments than children with no vocal alterations and their parents.