Making decisions with children

BMJ 1996;313:49 (6 July)

Letters

Making decisions with children

Asking children to participate in decisions about their careundermines parents' position

EDITOR,--It is clear from his editorial advocating that childrenshould participate in decisions about their care that GeorgeRylance has not the remotest idea of what is involved in theday to day care of children in a surgical context, where issuesof consent most commonly arise.¹ The extraordinary proposalsoutlined in his editorial and in the Institute of Public PolicyResearch's document from which he quotes--that consent independentof that of the parents should be obtained from the child forvirtually every procedure carried out in hospital, from beingweighed and measured onwards--would unleash a cocktail of bureaucracy,litigation, and time wasting in attempts to give children totalauthority in every procedure proposed for them in a hospital.This pernicious philosophy comes from the same stable as thatwhich presumes all parents guilty of injury or abuse . . . [Full text of this article]