Parental Responsibility - Essay Example

Parental Responsibility Parent Responsibility Parents are supposed to protect their children and protect them by providing a home for them in terms of shelter, food, and upkeep. Parental responsibility also looks at the general wellbeing and protection of the child. The parent is also responsible for disciplining the child, making decisions with regard to the child’s education, agreeing on their medical treatment, taking care of the child’s property among others things. There are a number of issues which come with parental responsibility.

Parental responsibility, from a legal point of view, is derived from the provisions of the 1989 Children Act. The Children Act of 1989 provides for guidelines as to the responsibilities, rights and duties that parents have over and to their children. Parental responsibility refers these duties, in the context of family and in the spirit of ensuring that the child is taken care of. It also helps in outlining how certain situations can and should be handled in cases where the difference sources of authorities may be in disagreement or where there is a disagreement between the child and the parent.

In the United Kingdom, the majority age is 18. This means that before this age, there is always a need to make sure that the parent can protect them. Responsibilities come with rights and vice versa (Hendrick, 2011). One of the historic issues with regard to the parental responsibility is the Gillick case where Mrs. Gillick had sued to stop doctors from prescribing contraception and offering contraction advice to people below the age of sixteen. After a long battle that ended in the House of Lords, Gillick lost because the house of lord voted in favor of giving people under sixteen the choice when it comes to such issues.

However, this was to be done within the Gillick competence guidelines that would be use to determine when a teenager can decide regardless of the parent’s decision, when to take such treatment. The issue of Gillick covers the problems of the fact that although there are some age limits that are kept to define who is an adult and who is a child, people mature at very different rates regardless of the chronological age.Reference:Hendrick, J. (2011). Gillick Competency . Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.