I have wondered this for some time now, in fact. Just how much legal authority do parents have to change their children’s beliefs?
Think about it. What if you are a carnivore, and your child wants to be a vegan? What if you are hawk, and your child wants to be a dove? What if you are a Catholic and your child wants to be a Lutheran? (Surely, you get the picture.)
I do know that in some locales, child “insubordination” is a crime. But will the state step in if your child won’t accept your beliefs (political or moral)? And how does the US Constitution come into play in a case like this?
I’m quite sure the state won’t step in to change anything because your child doesn’t believe what you do. What exactly could they do to change a belief.
Probably a parent has fairly broad powers to require a child to attend a specific church, for example. I’m not sure at what age a child could refuse and hope his/her own right to choose a religion would supersede the parent’s. It may be one of those – while you live in my house you follow my rules kind of things.
The one place there might be some state interference on the child’s side would be diet. If the child wanted to be a vegan, the state just might require a parent to provide enough vegan food to keep the child healthy.
But like many things, there will be no simple U.S. answer. It could vary from state to state.
I can’t imagine how a law could even address this. Even if the law has the authority to change someones’ beliefs, it lacks the ability. You might as well try to legislate that circles and squares of equal perimeter have equal areas.
You can control, to some degree, how they behave, but not what they believe. If your child wants to be vegan and you serve meat at every meal, you child can choose not to eat the meat, and you can choose to punish the child. The child can then go to somebody at school and next thing you know, there’s somebody from Child Protection Services on your doorstep wondering why your child isn’t getting any protein in his diet.
Children have been rebelling and running away from home situations they didn’t want to live in since Og flung feces at the back of the cave and ran off into the night. That’s probably something you don’t want happening.
In most modern civilized nations? None. Ideological disagreement is an entirely private family matter. *Actions *based on those beliefs are a different story.
And we don’t want to live in those locales.
In all the US currently the Family Law policy is to watch out for “the safety and best interests of the child” and that varies per case (Son needs an emergency medical intervention and Dad thinks only faith healing is the way? “This Court hereby authorizes the hospital to do what they have to do. Step out of the ER entrance, sir.” Daughter is in OWS and Mom’s in the Tea Party? “Um, ma’am, y’all have a talk and figure this out yourselves, but quietly and without waking up the neighbors three houses over, please!” ) and if they have to become involved they’ll step in to make sure the parents do nothing abusive. This however does not in any way abridge the basic presumption of the parents being the responsible adult legal guardians and the expectation that the child generally abide by “my house, my rules” for most cases in which there is no risk of harm in complying.
(You can can make the kid go to your church; but you can’t keep him from spending the whole service thinking of taking the Pastor’s daughter behind the back pews…)
Must distinguish “belief” and “practice”. A child can believe what he likes, but the state is empowered to regulate practice, even for adults. Obvious examples are Arson and Euthanasia. Alll of us, even as adults “believe in” some practices which are criminally proscribed, such as obstructing legal abortions or desertion from military service. We can be sanctioned only for the practice, not the belief.
Parents have a right to regulate their child’s behavior. That is, parents cannot prevent a child, say, worshiping Allah, but they can use disciplinary sanctions against the child for rolling out his prayer rug and facing Mecca and praying five times a day, just as they can prohibit wearing shoes in the house, set parental controls on the TV, or enforce other household rules respecting behavior.
The state has a right to intervene in parental controls only where there is reasonable cause to believe there is child endangerment, but the definition of that can vary, from Don Rumsfeld’s “causing organ failure” all the way down to “eroding self-esteem”.
As others have said, no one has a legal right (or the capacity) to change *anyone’s *beliefs. Parents can impose restrictions on children’s behavior (and should!), can force children to act in accordance with the parents’ beliefs (attend church), and can use all sorts of moral suasion (broccoli is good!). They can’t require children to act in accordance with some beliefs (e.g. to refuse most forms of medical care, sacrifice selves to devil, etc.).
As a parent of a teenager, I have to say that behavior is hard enough to enforce. The kid can believe what she wants.
Legally, it’s your decision whether a minor child is physically present in either a Catholic or Lutheran church on Sunday mornings, but it’s not your decision what he/she thinks or believes while being there.
This topic comes up in divorce cases from time to time, where different religions or varying levels of observance between the parents cause conflict in custody decisions.
BTW, the OP asks about application of the US Constitution… I would imagine the freedom to make your own parenting decisions goes under the “other rights reserved to the people” if being textualist, or under the Right to Privacy if interpretationist.
The authority to intervene in a family in cases of possible abuse is mostly wielded by the separate states under their General Police Power, by their authority to make such laws and regulations as necessary for the safety and protection of their citizens; the Federal jurisdiction comes in if there’s interstate movement or the incident involves actions, places or persons in the specified federal bailiwick.
SCOTUS has found that parents have a constitutional right to “control the upbringing” of children.
However, that was in the context of an infringement by the state (an Oregon law that required every child to attend public schools.) You can “require” that your child believe something, but there is no legal mechanism by which you can enforce it. There are, of course, nonlegal mechanisms - sending him to bed without supper, or whatever - which are likely to be of dubious effectiveness.
Regardless of the law, the OP is making an assumption that a person’s beliefs can be changed at all. Parent’s can attempt to change or influence their children’s beliefs as long as their actions themselves are not illegal. If the parents are successful in changing the beliefs of their children, they haven’t done anything illegal.
The constitution says, explicitly states, in no uncertain terms that enforcing a religion or belief is not allowed for the federal or state governments. The first amendment to the constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, …” . The “establishment of religion” means they can’t force any religion upon the people, including children. “freedom of speech” covers political, and philosophical speech.
Seems like **dstarfire **is saying that having the state step in to back up and enforce the parent’s decision *would *be acting in favor of a religion.
But as RNATB points out, a general fundamental right of the parents to raise their children as they best see fit, within reason, has already been recognized to exist though it is not textually enumerated in the Constitution; the Court in that case ruled on 14th Amendment Due Process grounds rather than First Amendment freedom grounds.
I disagree. Nine out of ten people on this planet end up having the same religion as their parents did. I’d say that implies a rather effective method of enforcing belief from one generation to the next, with a 90% success rate.
