Having parental responsibility will put your relationship with your child or step-child on an official footing. Your position will be recognised by schools, hospitals, local authorities and everyone else. This may make both the child and you feel a bit more secure.
Depending on whether you are the only person with parental responsibility or share the responsibility with others, you can make or be involved in decisions about the child’s future. This includes things like choosing the child's names, the religion they will be brought up in and what schools they'll go to.
It also means your child’s school should keep you informed about how they are doing at school, send you school reports and generally keep you in the loop, for example, about parents evenings, sports days, and other events.
It means you'll be able to do things like:
- consent to medical treatment for them,
- apply for a passport for them, and
- look after any property they are entitled to until their 18th birthday.
Having parental responsibility will also strengthen your position as a parent if the local authority asks the court for a care order in relation to your child.
But there are limits to the extent of your involvement if the child doesn’t live with you. Just because you have parental responsibility, doesn’t mean you can interfere with the child’s day to day living arrangements, for example, by trying to control what they have for lunch.
A parent who has parental responsibility can ask somebody else to use that responsibility on their behalf. So, for example, if you leave your child with their granny for a week while you are working you could give granny a letter confirming that she can use your parental responsibility while you are away. Granny could show that letter to your child’s school or a hospital to prove that she has ‘delegated’ parental responsibility and the school or hospital should respect it. Equally a mum can delegate parental responsibility to a dad who does not have it. So it is not always necessary for a dad to have a parental responsibility agreement or order to be able to use parental responsibility if needed.
It is important to understand that delegated parental responsibility can be time-limited, which means it can only be used for a set time and then it ends. Or it can be limited to just permit someone to do a certain thing, like take your child on holiday. Be aware that delegated parental responsibility can be removed at any time by the person who delegated it.
