Is your child living with a physical or cognitive disability or suffering from a chronic illness or a severe mental disorder? By helping them daily, you act as a caregiver parent. Although you may face challenges in this role, there are resources and legal tools to help you support your child throughout their life.
Recognizing yourself as a caregiver parent
Often, becoming a caregiver parent is not a conscious choice. Whether your child has a disability, chronic illness or other difficulty, you probably feel first and foremost like a parent who wants to meet their child’s needs.
However, you can be considered your child’s caregiver in addition to being their parent. For example, you’re acting as a caregiver when you have to manage medical care, appointments or administrative procedures that go beyond what is normally expected from a parent.
Recognizing your role as a caregiver parent allows you to discover various support measures, legal tools and resources available to support you in your role.
Support measures for caregivers
Being a caregiver parent requires a lot of time and energy. You could be eligible for various support measures. Here are some examples:
- Some deductions or tax credits may be available to you as a caregiver.
- You could be able to take unpaid time off from work, up to 16, 27 or 36 weeks per year, depending on your situation.
- If you meet the requirements, you could be entitled to employment insurance caregiving benefits during all or part of your absence from work.
- If you are eligible for Quebec’s social assistance program, you could be entitled to an additional temporarily limited capacity allowance because of your role as a caregiver.
Legal mechanisms for helping your child
SeWhether you will need to make decisions for your child and act on their behalf depends on both their age and the difficulty they’re living with. A variety of legal tools can help you protect or support them, whether your child is a minor or an adult.
From birth to age 13
Parents are automatically their child’s legal tutor until the child turns 18. This means that you take care of your child’s well-being and that you can make decisions for them. This also means you can consent to healthcare for a child under 14 years old. The fact that you are in a caregiving role does not change this rule.
However, be careful! If you are the only parent acting as a caregiver, the other parent is still the legal tutor of your child. Therefore, they have just as much right as you to make decisions regarding your child and must be consulted on all important decisions. The fact that you are acting alone as a caregiver does not mean that you have more decision-making power than the other parent.
From age 14 to the age of majority
Until a child turns 18, parents remain their legal tutors. So, you continue to make decisions for your child. However, after turning 14, your child can make their own decisions about health care in certain situations.
If your adult child is incapacitated
Once your child turns 18, they can usually make their own decisions and decide everything without you. Parents’ legal tutorship for their child automatically stops at this age. However, if your child does not understand the full implications and consequences of their decisions, they could still be considered legally incapacitated. As an example, they might not understand these things because of a cognitive disorder. In a situation like this, someone else must make decisions for the adult child, while preserving their autonomy as much as possible.
Tutorship for an adult
Establishing a tutorship for an incapacitated adult allows someone to act for and in place of your incapacitated adult child. As a caregiver, you could be named as your child’s tutor. Both parents can also be designated tutors.
In the case of a minor child approaching the age of majority, the tutorship can be established in the year before the child turns 18. This way, there’s no uncertainty during the time it takes to establish the tutorship.
Tutorship does not automatically take away your child’s right to make decisions. The court’s decision that establishes the tutorship can identify some decisions that your child can make by themselves and which decisions their tutor must make for them.
Temporary representation
In the absence of a tutorship, it is possible to name a temporary representative for your incapacitated child. Temporary representation promotes the incapacitated person’s autonomy. It allows the representative to act on behalf on the incapacitated person for a specific act and during a certain time. An example would be selling something that belongs to your child.
Protection mandate
If your child becomes incapacitated later in their life, you can check if they signed a protection mandate. Examples of events that could incapacitate someone include an accident or a mental disorder.
If your child signed a protection mandate, you can take steps to activate and use this protection mandate. After activating the protection mandate, the person named as mandatary legally acts on behalf of your incapacitated child, while consulting them as much as possible.
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Good to know: if your child has signed a protection mandate, you usually can’t establish a tutorship. |
Consent to medical care
If your child is unable to consent to medical care, the person making decisions for them will also make decisions about their medical care. However, if your adult child clearly refuses this medical care, a court must decide.
If your adult child is capable
Your child can understand all the consequences of their decisions and be considered legally capable but still need help with administrative tasks or signing documents. As examples, this could be the case if your child is deaf and mute, doesn’t speak French or is unable to manage paperwork because of a severe depression.
In these situations, you can use two legal tools: the assistance measure or a power of attorney.
Assistance measure
With the assistance measure, you don’t make decisions or sign documents on behalf of your adult child. You assist them by communicating and obtaining information for them, whether by phone or in person. Here’s the advantage to being officially recognized as your child’s assistant: the people you contact on behalf of your child must communicate with you if you request it.
Power of attorney
A power of attorney allows you to represent your child. You can make decisions and sign documents on their behalf, depending on which powers are included in the power of attorney. However, your child is still able to decide and sign by themselves and can put an end to the power of attorney at any time.
Legal Tools for Assisting, Representing or Taking Care of Someone Who Needs Help
Are you assisting a loved one who needs support due to their age, illness, or disability? Looking for ways to make your role as a helper, caregiver, or representative more efficient? Explore our comparison chart to find the legal tool that suits you.
If you’re no longer able to take care of your child
As a caregiver parent, you might fear what would happen to your child if you were no longer able to help them.
Two documents can help you plan this situation.
With a protection mandate, you plan for your potential incapacity. In this document, you can plan who would be your child’s tutor if you were to become incapable, in the absence of another parent. You could also clearly state that your money can by used to help and take care of your child, whether they are a minor or an adult.
In your will, you can say who will be your minor child’s tutor when you die, in the absence of another parent. Whether your child is a minor or an adult, you can also plan who will manage the money or assets you wish to leave to your child and how they should manage them. A testamentary trust could be appropriate and advantageous in some situations. Contact a legal professional for more information about this.