Parents can take four and a half months extra off work in order to look after their child.
The legal entitlement, called parental leave, means that mothers and fathers can take 18 weeks away from work to look after their family.
Parental leave can be taken anytime before your child turns 18.
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But the time off is unpaid (unless stated otherwise in your contract) and can only be used for certain reasons.
Most people know you’re entitled to statutory family leave if your child is sick.
However lesser known reasons include looking around for schools or taking them to see grandparents.
Under the government-backed unpaid leave rules, each parent is entitled to 18 weeks’ leave for each child and adopted child.
The government stresses on its www.gov.uk website: "Eligible employees can take unpaid parental leave to look after their child’s welfare.
"For example to spend more time with their children, look at new schools, settle children into new childcare arrangements, spend more time with family, such as visiting grandparents."
The limit on how much parental leave each parent can take per year is four weeks for each child.
To be eligible for parental leave you must:
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Be an employee
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Have or expect to have parental responsibility for a child under 18
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Have worked for your employer for at least one year
Parental leave must be taken a week at a time but you don’t have to take it all at once.
A ‘‘week’ equals the length of time an employee normally works over seven days.
So if you work three days a week "one ‘week’ of parental leave equals 3 days.”
If an employee works irregular weeks, the number of days in a ‘week’ is the total number of days they work a year divided by 52.
If your child is on Disability Living Allowance (DLA) or Personal Independence Payment (PIP), you can take parental leave one day at a time.
Reasons you're allowed to take unpaid leave include:
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Spend more time with their children
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Look at new schools
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Settle children into new childcare arrangements
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Spend more time with family, such as visiting grandparents
How much parental leave can I take?
Each parent can take up to 18 weeks of parental leave in total for each child, until the child turns 18.
You can take up to 4 weeks per child per year. If you have two children, you can take up to 8 weeks per year.
What to do if you need to take time to look after your children:
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Speak to your manager - Different employers have different policies. They may allow you to take paid time off, annual leave or to make up the hours later in the week.
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Request parental leave - If you need more than a week off, ask for parental leave. You will have to have been working for your employer for more than a year.
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Request dependant leave - this is for use in emergencies. If your manager refuses, you may have to leave anyway. If they try to discipline or sack you for leaving you can get support from Citizens Advice.
What if I don’t qualify for parental leave?
Even if you don’t qualify for parental leave, you should be able to get time off to deal with genuine family emergencies.
You have the right to take a reasonable amount of unpaid time off to deal with certain emergencies involving people you care for.
You qualify for “time off for dependents” regardless of how long you have been working for your employer.
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