Legal Challenges When Working With Children

Working with children under any setting is always a challenge but it becomes a legal challenge when it comes to children and confidentiality. Counseling minors is a tricky business because they have the same rights as clients, but they also don’t have the same rights as regular clients because they are minors and can not truly consent, and in a sense have limited confidentiality. According to the ACA 2014 code of ethics counselors “respect the inherent rights and responsibilities of parents/guardians regarding the welfare of their children/charges according to law. (ACA, B.5b.)” This is one of the hardships when working with minors because we have to try to keep our client’s privacy, but we also have to keep the parents informed and if they want to know everything about what their child says we have to tell them. Another challenge about working with children is that it is easy to create a dual relationship with them. Depending the child’s age, they may not realize
This may mean that you have to convince the parents not to press certain issues because the child is not ready for them to know. However, if the parents insist then I would first talk to the child and see what they are comfortable revealing, and if it is still not enough for the parents then I would think it best to set the whole family down and we talk as a group to hopefully set some boundary limits. When it come to dual relationships I think the best course of action is to set firm boundaries, and do your best to keep the professional life separate from your personal life. However, when it comes to dual relationships with a child I still think its best to keep the two separate and if you run into them if they run up to you then you should be polite. I also would not go to their birthday parties or buy them gifts but I would say Happy