# Parent Close Policy

> Understand the Parent-Child Workflow relationship, including when to use Child Workflows and Parent Close Policies.

This page discusses [Parent Close Policy](#parent-close-policy).

## What is a Parent Close Policy? 

A Parent Close Policy determines what happens to a Child Workflow Execution if its Parent changes to a Closed status (Completed, Failed, or Timed out).

- [How to set a Parent Close Policy using the Go SDK](/develop/go/workflows/child-workflows#parent-close-policy)
- [How to set a Parent Close Policy using the Java SDK](/develop/java/workflows/child-workflows#parent-close-policy)
- [How to set a Parent Close Policy using the PHP SDK](/develop/php/workflows/child-workflows#parent-close-policy)
- [How to set a Parent Close Policy using the Python SDK](/develop/python/workflows/child-workflows#parent-close-policy)
- [How to set a Parent Close Policy using the TypeScript SDK](/develop/typescript/workflows/child-workflows#parent-close-policy)
- [How to set a Parent Close Policy using the .NET SDK](/develop/dotnet/workflows/child-workflows#parent-close-policy)
- [How to set a Parent Close Policy using the Rust SDK](/develop/rust/workflows/child-workflows#parent-close-policy)

There are three possible values:

- **Abandon:** the Child Workflow Execution is not affected.
- **Request Cancel:** a Cancellation request is sent to the Child Workflow Execution.
- **Terminate** (default): the Child Workflow Execution is forcefully Terminated.

[`ParentClosePolicy`](https://github.com/temporalio/api/blob/c1f04d0856a3ba2995e92717607f83536b5a44f5/temporal/api/enums/v1/workflow.proto#L44) proto definition.

Each Child Workflow Execution may have its own Parent Close Policy.
This policy applies only to Child Workflow Executions and has no effect otherwise.

![Parent Close Policy entity relationship](/diagrams/parent-close-policy.svg)

You can set policies per child, which means you can opt out of propagating terminates / cancels on a per-child basis.
This is useful for starting Child Workflows asynchronously (see [relevant issue here](https://community.temporal.io/t/best-way-to-create-an-async-child-workflow/114) or the corresponding SDK docs).