Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Table of cases
- Table of statutes
- Table of statutory instruments
- Table of international instruments
- Part One Theoretical perspectives and international sources
- Part Two Promoting consultation and decision-making
- 3 Adolescent autonomy and parents
- 4 Leaving home, rights to support and emancipation
- 5 Adolescent decision-making and health care
- 6 Promoting consultation and decision-making in schools
- 7 Children's involvement in family proceedings – rights to representation
- 8 Children in court – their welfare, wishes and feelings
- Part Three Children's rights and parents' powers
- 19 Conclusion – themes and the way ahead
- Appendix I UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
- Appendix II Human Rights Act 1998
- Index
- References
4 - Leaving home, rights to support and emancipation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Table of cases
- Table of statutes
- Table of statutory instruments
- Table of international instruments
- Part One Theoretical perspectives and international sources
- Part Two Promoting consultation and decision-making
- 3 Adolescent autonomy and parents
- 4 Leaving home, rights to support and emancipation
- 5 Adolescent decision-making and health care
- 6 Promoting consultation and decision-making in schools
- 7 Children's involvement in family proceedings – rights to representation
- 8 Children in court – their welfare, wishes and feelings
- Part Three Children's rights and parents' powers
- 19 Conclusion – themes and the way ahead
- Appendix I UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
- Appendix II Human Rights Act 1998
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
One of the most emphatic ways in which children and young people can assert their right to take responsibility for their own lives is by simply walking out – leaving their home and parents behind them. This is a drastic step. Most children, particularly teenagers, sometimes find their parents' ideas outdated and their attempts to discipline them tedious. In turn, parents may be reluctant to allow their offspring greater independence before they consider them ready to cope with it. Nevertheless, in well-functioning families, negotiation and compromise will ensure that both ‘sides’ emerge relatively unscathed. Sadly, increasing numbers of children and young people find life at home so unbearable that they vote with their feet and leave. The law presents them with a contradictory set of principles. There is confusion over whether they have the right to leave home at all, at what age they may do so, what rights they have on leaving and what rights their parents have to force their return.
Although it is currently impossible to obtain accurate estimates of the number of children and young people running away from home, it is clear that too many take this step. Young people leave for a variety of reasons: to escape ‘maltreatment’; arguments and family conflict; general unhappiness at home; problems at school, including bullying and exclusions. Surprisingly large numbers are quite simply told by their parents or step-parents to leave, or they feel forced to go.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Children's Rights and the Developing Law , pp. 106 - 145Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009
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