What is you view on parental responsiblity when faced against the law?

Question

Like when their son/daughter is accused of truency. Or the fact that the son/daughter shot someone with the parent's gun. Or when the son/daughter want to move out and does something illegal.

Answer 1

Parents are legally responsible for their minor children. Until age 18.

Answer 2

It is the parent's responsibility to make sure that their children go to school daily. For some parents - situations are difficult - due to jobs .. and due to children who are difficult .. however, the parent is responsible and they must DO whatever they have to DO to make sure this happens. If the child is impossible - the parent should seek legal assistance for help with the things she cannot achieve with the child. If the parent is being negligant - the parent will be held responsible.

In some States .. guns must be put away - so kids cannot get the guns. Parents, adults, are held responsible. It's the law. This is a law to protect everyone.

When a child moves out of the home - and the child does illegal things - then this should be the responsibility of the child. Every person is usually held accountable for their actions.

There are considerations for everything ... like .. did they parent drive the child out of the home .. the age of the child .. or if the child left the home on their own choice .. etc.

There are laws to protect the minor child .. and there are laws where each person is held accountable for their own actions.

Most people know 'right' from 'wrong' .. and they should do accordingly.

Laws are to protect .. and should be obided by .. by all.

Answer 3

In the first case, truancy, it is the parent's responsibility to make sure the child is in school. My good friend was having trouble with her son going to school. It got to the point where she would physically walk into the school with him, take him into the Principal's office and tell them he was now in the school building and it was their job to keep him there. When he ended up having to go to court, the judge found him guilty but not his mother since there were records of her doing all she could.

In the second case, guns should not be accessible to children. Guns should be kept under lock and key. If the gun belongs to the parent, the parent is responsible for knowing its whereabouts at any given moment. Don't want that responsibility? Don't have any guns. (I have guns, by the way, so I'm not against owning guns, but the parents have to be responsible).

In the third case, once the child has moved out and is solely responsible for his own decisions, the parents can no longer be held responsible except in the case of a child who has mental or emotional problems. The parent is still responsible for at least making sure that people know about the child's illness so that they can be extra careful around that child.

Answer 4

parental responsibility doesn't start AFTER something goes wrong. It starts at the moment of conception and carries forward until your children are truly adults (not necessarily a certain age but free-thinking, sentient, independent, autonomous, self-supporting people).

So if you child becomes a thug or criminal, you have failed at your job as a parent and you should be responsible in equal measure.

To use your examples, truancy costs the school district money, money that comes form the rest of society...the parents should be forced to pay restitution, be it in the form of cash or labor, or whatever (they can drag the kid into this if they want...I would). In the case of shooting someone with the parent's gun...that's a no brainer...it's no different than running someone over with the parent's car or writing a bad check with the parent's checkbook...ultimately, the parents are enabling for making the hazardous condition available to their child.

If the kid moves out and is totally independent, self-supporting, and in no way dependent on their parent, then I suppose I'd have to lump the blame on the kid, but from a moral perspective, the parents have likely failed in some major way if it came to this.

Answer 5

Ultimately, like it or not, our society hold parents responsible for the actions of their children.
Personally I think it depends upon the age and what steps the parent has taken to keep the child on the straight and narrow.

If a parent has done everything they know to do and exhausted resources available to them it is different from a parent that just throws up their hands and lets their child run loose.

At some point, a child know the difference between right and wrong, understand cause and effect and understands consequences and have to be held accountable for their actions.

I think that parents are often held more accountable for their children's action than the child himself is and that is wrong and why so many children are irresponsible and get in the trouble they do.

Answer 6

I think it is important that the child know that he/she is loved by the parent. it is equally important that the parent NOT bail the child out of situations like this. If that happens, children begin to believe that there are no consequences for their actions and that their parents will get them out of any scrapes in which they find themselves. Depending on the situation, counseling or other appropriate interventions would be necessary. I don't think there is any one correct answer, but I feel that parents do their children an injustice when they do not allow them to experience the natural consequences of their actions.

As far as the parent's legal responsibilities, I believe that parents should be held responsible for their children's actions if their own actions could have prevented the infraction. School truancy and the shooting with parent's gun are perfect examples. I believe these things usually occur because of some neglect on the parents' part, in which case the parent should suffer some consequences as well.

Answer 7

This is a very good question.Because the government has taken many rights away from the parents concerning how we disapline our kids thats a difficult answer.
The police look at it this way.they agree that parents need to disapline thier kids in order for them to grow up and be good citizens.Yet the government says Spanking is child abuse.Now heres where i have a serious problem.You spank your child and you run the risk of getting put in jail.however you don't disapline your children then your still responsible for when they commit a crime?Or heaven forbid hurt someone else?
This makes absolutely no since to me at all.
And another thing is,where i live it's legal for a 16 yr old to drop out of school without parental permission.As well as move out of the family home at 17 without the parent haveing any say so at all.Yet if they get into any trouble now,the parent is responsible.
It appears to me that this issue lies on what one would call a double bladed sword.
Theres no right or wrong answers to it.
[e-mail]

Answer 8

Parents are responsible until their children are 18. It's the parents' responsibility to make sure their children go to school. It's the parents' responsibility, if they have a gun, to make sure that it is locked up and not accessible to their children. A child legally can't move out of their parents home until they're 18 or until they have been emancipated by the courts. So, if they do something illegal after that it is not their parents' responsibility.

Answer 9

Parents are responsible for their children that are under age 18 ( They need to step up to the plate. )

Answer 10

For the things you mentioned and if I knew for sure they did it they would be on their own. Otherwise I would support them to the best of my ability.

BTW I have two children taht are Police Officers