Supported Decision-Making and Helping Your Child Make Decisions

Children with disabilities or special health care needs often find other people making choices for them: where they’ll live, what therapies they’ll get and even what they’ll eat. But being able to make even small everyday choices for themselves, which we sometimes call self-determination, helps your child start down the road to independence.

You can support your child in making decisions at any time in their lives by helping them get information about a situation and understand more about the choices they could make. If your adult child still needs or wants help with their choices, you or another trusted adult can also make a clear, written and legal supported decision-making agreement with them.

Read on to learn more and for tips on how you can support your child in making decisions at any age, with or without a legal agreement.

Supported Decision-Making Agreements and Other Tools for Adult Children

At age 18, in the eyes of the law, your now-adult child is completely responsible for their own choices. The doctors, therapists and school staff who used to include you in every visit or meeting might not be able to talk to you without your child’s permission. Or they might have new doctors and other professionals in their life who won’t talk to you without a legal document in place.

The following pages on this website might help you as your child becomes an adult:

Legal Help for People With Disabilities – on the different possible legal tools.
Legal Options for Age 18 and Beyond – with important choices to know about for adult children.
Supported Decision-Making and Power of Attorney – more details on two important legal tools.
Helping Your Child Build Their Independence – tips and ideas for any age.

A supported decision-making agreement is a legal document for adults with disabilities or special health care needs. If your adult child is going to need help in certain areas of their life, their school might start talking to you about guardianship or other legal options that you can use to support your child. Supported decision-making is another option that might fit your child’s needs instead of guardianship.

The agreement says that you, or another trusted adult they choose, will help your adult child with certain decisions.

When setting up the supported decision-making agreement, your adult child decides which choices they want to get help with, like:

Their Admissions, Dismissal and Review (ARD) meetings if they have them and getting the services they might want or need.
If they want to go to college or a job training program after high school.
The kind of job they want, where they will work and how they will manage their paycheck or any problems at work.
Where they will live. They might live with you, on their own or with roommates. You might help them talk to a landlord or find housing.
Self-care decisions, including getting exercise, diet, picking out clothes and others.
Managing their money.
Going to doctor’s appointments, managing their physical or mental health or choosing a new treatment.

How to Set Up Supported Decision-Making

Decide on the areas where your child wants help. Review the National Resource Center for Supported Decision-Making worksheet that you and your child can use to pick out the areas where they want your help.
Fill out the supported decision-making agreement. You can download a free copy of a blank supported decision-making agreement from the Arc of Texas.
Sign the agreement in front of two other people or a notary public, a person who witnesses legal documents, and those people sign it too. No lawyer or court visit is needed.
Give a copy of the agreement to the people and organizations it will affect: your child’s bank, school, doctors, health insurance representative or anyone else who needs to know you are helping your child with these decisions.
Either you or your child can end that agreement at any time by tearing it up and letting the people who got copies of the agreement know that it ended.

Also, if your adult child wants your help with health care or school, they might need to sign release forms. You can download a medical release form or get one from the doctor or therapist. You can get a school release form from your child’s school counselor.

How to Support Your Child in Making Decisions at Any Age

Even without a legal agreement, you can use a supported decision-making approach in daily life to help your child make decisions. And if you start this when your child is young, it might be easier to do when they’re an adult.

When you have a big decision to make in your life, you probably don’t do it all by yourself. You most likely call a friend, talk to your family or ask someone else you trust for their opinion. And then you make your choice.

There are three parts of a supported decision-making process:

Help your child get the information they need to make a choice.
Help your child think through all the parts of their choice and its impact.
Help them talk to or work with the people who need to know what choice they’ve made.

When you support your child, you don’t make the decisions for them. You help them make decisions for themselves.

For example, let’s say your child wants to be in an art class after school and has a chance to do a dance class at the same time.

Help your child gather information: How much will each class cost? What time is each class? Is there a way to do both? How will they get to and from the classes? Which friends might be doing the art or dance class too?
Think it through with them: What do they like about the art class? What’s exciting about the dance class? Will one of the classes make them too busy or tired for their other responsibilities, like homework? How will they or you pay for the classes? What do they think they’ll learn or get out of each class?
Make a decision and share it. After your child makes the final decision, they might need help starting the class or telling their friends about it. You can show them how to fill out the application online, on paper or how to call to sign up for the class. If they know a friend is in the class, you can help them remember to tell their friend that they will be in the class too. Depending on your child’s age and abilities, you might need to do some of these things.

Other Ways to Support Decision-Making

Making decisions isn’t always easy. Here are some resources that might help both you and your child when important decisions come up:

Your child can have a person-centered plan.
A transition plan is a way to help you and your child get ready for the choices that come as they reach adulthood.
Think about setting up a personal network of other people who will commit to your child and help make sure they are well cared for.
You can connect with other parents who are also trying to help their children make good decisions as they grow up.

Every child has different needs, and there are different ways you can work with your child to make everyday and bigger life decisions. Just because your child turns 18 doesn’t mean you stop being their parent.

Using supported decision-making and setting up a legal supported decision-making agreement can make it easier for you and them as they transition into the world of adulthood.