Q: Can my teenager see a therapist without my consent?

A: Yes, from age 12, for outpatient therapy, if the attending professional finds the minor "mature enough to participate intelligently" in it.¹ That maturity finding is now the only condition. Until 1 July 2024 the Family Code also required that the minor would be a danger to themselves or others without the care, or was an alleged victim of incest or child abuse; AB 665 repealed that requirement, and there is no successor provision.¹ Guidance still reciting the danger-or-abuse test — including a good deal of what is currently online — is describing law that is no longer operative.

Two statutes, and which one applies to you. Health & Safety Code §124260 is defined by who provides the care: it lists twelve categories of professional, from licensed psychologists and psychiatrists to associate MFTs, associate social workers and trainees under supervision, and it covers outpatient treatment only.² Family Code §6924 is defined by where the care happens — a governmental agency, an agency under contract with one, an agency funded by community united funds, a runaway house or crisis resolution centre, or a professional person as §124260 defines that term (or the chief administrator of one of those agencies) — and it also covers temporary residential shelter services.¹ Since AB 665 the consent test in both is identical, so the choice usually matters only for scope. It matters enormously in one place: Medi-Cal, where a 2010 statute (operative 1 January 2011) switches §124260 off entirely, leaving §6924 as the operative authority.³ That is precisely why AB 665 was written — before July 2024 a teenager on Medi-Cal had to clear the danger-or-abuse gate that a privately insured teenager did not.³

The law does not cut you out — it makes cutting you out a documented clinical decision. Both statutes say the treatment shall include involvement of the minor's parent or guardian, unless the professional, after consulting with the minor, determines that involvement would be inappropriate.⁴ Either way the therapist must write in the chart whether and when they tried to contact you, whether the attempt succeeded, or the reason contact would be inappropriate.⁴ Involvement is the default, not the exception, and there is no statutory list of what makes it inappropriate.

Four things minor consent does not reach.

  • Medication. Neither statute authorises psychotropic drugs, convulsive therapy or psychosurgery without the consent of the parent or guardian.⁵ A 14-year-old cannot consent themselves onto an antidepressant.
  • Inpatient and residential psychiatric care. The consent right is outpatient (plus, under §6924, temporary shelter). A voluntary psychiatric admission is applied for by the parent or guardian, not the minor.⁶
  • Your wallet, mostly. You are not liable for payment for care your child consented to — unless you participate in it, and then only for the services rendered with your participation.⁷ Shelter services flip on your consent rather than your participation.⁷
  • Moving out. The claim that this law lets a 12-year-old be housed away from home without a parent's knowledge does not survive the text: §6924 reaches "residential shelter services," defined as temporary or emergency shelter, that authority long predates AB 665 and was not altered by it, and the provider must make best efforts to notify the parent that the services are being provided.⁸

What you can and cannot see afterwards. Records of care a minor lawfully consented to are, by statute, records a parent "shall not be entitled" to inspect — this is not the therapist's discretion, and paying the premium does not change it.⁹ How that works from the teenager's side →

Do this: if your teenager has asked for therapy, the most useful thing you can say is "I will help you find someone, and what you talk about is yours." It keeps you in the room, which is where both the statute and the clinical evidence would rather you were. If you are the one worried and they are refusing, that is a different problem with different moves. When a teenager refuses therapy →

More ways to support your teen: See the family support guide →

Sources

  1. Family Code §6924(b): "A minor who is 12 years of age or older may consent to mental health treatment or counseling on an outpatient basis, or to residential shelter services, if the minor, in the opinion of the attending professional person, is mature enough to participate intelligently in the outpatient services or residential shelter services." Settings at §6924(a)(1); shelter defined at §6924(a)(3) — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov. This version was repealed and added by AB 665 (Stats. 2023, Ch. 338, Sec. 3), effective 1 January 2024 and operative 1 July 2024 by §6924(g) — the two dates are different and the operative one is the one that matters. The repealed subdivision (b)(2) had required that the minor "would present a danger of serious physical or mental harm to self or to others without the mental health treatment or counseling or residential shelter services" or be "the alleged victim of incest or child abuse."
  2. Health & Safety Code §124260(a)(1)–(2) and (b)(1) — "Notwithstanding any law to the contrary, a minor who is 12 years of age or older may consent to mental health treatment or counseling services if, in the opinion of the attending professional person, the minor is mature enough to participate intelligently in the mental health treatment or counseling services" — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov. Current version amended by Stats. 2024, Ch. 497 (SB 1526). Note §124260(b)(2), which has no equivalent in the Family Code: a trainee or intern must notify their supervisor within 24 hours of treating a minor under this section, and immediately after the session where they believe on initial assessment that the minor is a danger to self or others.
  3. Welfare & Institutions Code §14029.8, in its entirety: "Section 124260 of the Health and Safety Code shall not apply to the receipt of benefits under the Medi-Cal program." Added by Stats. 2010, Ch. 503 and unamended since — AB 665 did not touch it; the chaptered act is "An act to amend, repeal, and add Section 6924 of the Family Code, relating to minors." The Department of Health Care Services describes the resulting alignment in Behavioral Health Information Notice 24-046 (30 December 2024) — dhcs.ca.gov.
  4. Family Code §6924(d) and Health & Safety Code §124260(c), which impose the same duty in materially identical language (§124260(c) adds an introductory "Notwithstanding any law to the contrary").
  5. Family Code §6924(f); Health & Safety Code §124260(e). The cross-reference is to Welfare & Institutions Code §5325(f)–(g).
  6. Welfare & Institutions Code §6000(a)(2) (state hospitals — "In the case of a minor, the application shall be made by his or her parents, or by the parent, guardian, conservator, or other person entitled to his or her custody") and §6004 (county psychiatric hospitals). A minor 14 or older whom a parent admits to a private psychiatric facility has a separate right to an independent clinical review — what that is →.
  7. Family Code §6924(e); Health & Safety Code §124260(d).
  8. Family Code §6924(a)(3), (c) and (e).
  9. Health & Safety Code §123115(a)(1) and (a)(3), read with §123110(a) and the definition of "representative" at §123105(e)(1) — leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.

All sections read on the operative text on 18 August 2026. This page describes the statute; it is not legal advice.

For parents, the school side of this — the confidential-medical-services excusal and the involvement default — is on its own page. Can my teen leave school for therapy without telling me? →

A teen living apart from their parents can consent to care at 15 and to therapy at 12, and can apply for Medi-Cal alone. Therapy and Medi-Cal without my parents at 16 →

Separated parents: Can my ex block our child's therapy? →

And the question the consent statutes leave with the parent: Can my parents make me take medication? →

In crisis? Call or text 988 — free, 24/7.