Can anyone help me understand more about legal guardians for children in the event of a parents death? Especially when it comes to step-parents maintaining care of gaining parental responsibility in the event of their spouses death? Basically I have a son from a previous relationship. His father cannot have unsupervised contact with him and is not a suitable parent, he simply would not have the capacity to care for him in the event of my death. We have a child arrangements order which stipulates that our son lives with me. I'm now married and have two other children, who are very close in age to their half-brother. My first son has always known my husband to be his other "daddy" and we live together as a family. As I understand it, if I were to die suddenly, my eldest would automatically be placed in his bio father's care despite our family circumstances. Of course I want to avoid that ever happening, but I'm unclear as to whether I can appoint my husband as his legal guardian upon my death, granting him parental responsibility for him, or if we would need to go through the process of trying to get him parental rights through the courts now? I know it can be a long and complicated process so I'd like to avoid it if there is a simpler way! Thank you!