Grandparents: Know Your Rights!

By Joan E. Lisante

What You Can Do to Keep Connected with Your Grandchildren

Dana Nourie didn’t know when she’d get to build Lego™ castles again with twin grandchildren Michael and Amanda. She and her husband had visited the kids regularly since birth, but were shut out after her son and his wife separated.

“It was incredibly painful,” she recalls. “We had always been active in our grandkids’ lives and they were only 1-1/2 years old when this happened.”

When Nourie’s daughter-in-law obtained a restraining order against her son, hope for a normal relationship with the toddlers vanished.  Nourie trudged to supervised visits in a county building, shadowed by a state worker who took notes.

Happily, the couple eventually worked out a visitation schedule. Nourie now sees Michael and Amanda often and gladly serves as the “free babysitter.”

Divorce spirited away Nourie’s grandchildren. Death can do the same.

Amy, who asked that we not use her real name because her daughter, who lived in Colorado with her husband and 4-year-old son, died last fall under what she considers to be suspicious circumstances. Her son-in-law, with whom she was not close, she says, “showed no remorse” over her daughter’s death and has refused to allow Amy or her husband any communication with their grandson.

“I put together information for the police,” she says, “but they … closed the case.” She is now consulting a lawyer to re-establish ties with her grandson.

Similar situations occur daily across the country, as families split up and regroup. Grandparents are caught in the fallout and suffer greatly when carefully nurtured relationships with grandchildren are cut off.

State Laws and the Courts

All 50 states have addressed the problem with so-called “grandparents laws” spelling out when grandparents have a legal right to visit their grandchildren or even take custody of them. Laws vary widely, and some are more liberal than others. All are subject to interpretation by the courts.