Contact with Grandchild

Children have rights, parents have responsibilities, grandparents don’t have rights.
If you want legal advice, find an experienced family lawyer. Their name will be on the children panel

You mean grandparents rights and mediation with a minor?

With parents for a minor, sorry

I think there are probably a lot of family law solicitors in this country that would take on your case and would be able to advise you much better. I think you need to have your case accepted and would need to attend mediation before court.

But as was previously said the rights in this situation belong to the child and those rights are one among many. So you would have to be able to prove in court that the loss of your relationship is more devastating to the child than many other factors

One factor would be (if mediation failed) the cost to the child's family of going to court causing financial hardship, the stress this places on the parents and therefore the child because even the best parent cannot prevent a child sensing their stress.

Other factors would be visitation as children get older feeling forced to them when they would rather be doing other things. That may actually damage your relationship with them, especially during those all important independent teenage years.

The children will have to be evaluated and questioned on whether or not they are open to a relationship with you. It could be that you get a way through the court process which can be costly for a child who senses their parents do not want this and then say no.

It's ultimately a stressful, emotionally exhausting process for all parties and would likely sever any chance of repairing the relationship in the future.

I obviously don't know your reasons for asking but I understand you love your grandchild so I think you need to understand some of the problems a child may face going the court route.

The absolute best way to have a good relationship with the grandchild is to have a good relationship with the parent.

You do not need to access the court route to go to mediation or some sort of joint talk therapy with a trained professional to help you resolve issues and that may be a better first step

I don’t think UK grandparents have any rights of access to their grandchildren .
Even if they did it would only make a bad situation worse because their parents would resent the interference.
Unless there was a fear of child abuse it’s a bad idea. Better to sort problems out with parents first if at all possible.

Hello Maz, as Iam has said you need to see an experienced family lawyer for advice. Mediation with the child's parents before a court hearing is required, but if that is rejected by the parents you can still make an application to the family court to have your case heard.

An established relationship between you and your GC needs to be proved as it's the rights of the child to have and maintain their relationship with members of the their extended family which is the issue.

GP's don't have any rights, the rights belong to the child.

Please think very carefully before taking the legal route as even if you're successful and a contact order is granted by the court, this is not easy to enforce if the parents fail to make the child available for contact.

If this is the case you would need to return to court to try and have the order complied with.

Most of the time a grandparent would not have rights and, even if you went down this route you would have to prove that the breakdown in relationship is detrimental to the child. For example, if you picked your grandchild up from school every day and spend a couple of hours with them every day then that would be seen as having a significant impact and could be argued that it is detrimental.
You need to look at why the contact has broken down. Is this your son or daughters child? And what have they said to you about it?

Whoa up there is what I would advise. Calling legal people, if there was a snap.in the relationship before, this would surely create a canyon of divide.

Maybe try talking to the adults.again, ask if they would be willing to attend family mediation and if all is a firm No, I would honestly advise let it go for.the moment and work constructively at building the bridge.

In some countries grandparent alienation is seen as a form of elder abuse.

Your situation seems very sad and I am sorry this has happened.

This article may help a little

www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/lifetime-connections/202303/grandparent-alienation-a-loss-unlike-any-other

In some countries grandparent alienation is seen as a form of elder abuse that's interesting Nanfromafar, I didn't know that.

In general it’s very hard to be granted any sort of rights when it comes to someone else’s children. As well it should be.

I would think VERY LONG and hard and possibly try individual therapy before you go this route because when the moment it gets brought up - you have doomed that relationship to certain end. I would never have spoken to anyone who tried it again, and it’s possibly that should you lose you’d be. Nailing your own coffin in terms
Of any further contact with grandchild or their parents ever

Yes, it can be used as coercive control

Yes it can Nanfromafar.

As an outside observer a lot would depend on what sort of personality or influence the grandparent was having on my child? Is the grandparent domineering and did the parent suffer a miserable childhood? My aunt was horrible and controlled everyone within her circle. It had a very detrimental effect of both near and extended family. In fact, when my parents died I did not invite her to the funeral teas, as she would have made it all about her. We need to think about what sort of effect we are having on our families by the way we act, what we say and if it well or badly received.

Grandparents have no rights at all. No matter how much contact you had with your grandchild babysitting weekends etc I’m astray from one of my granddaughters I’ve begged and cried. Her mum went bitter when she split up with my son. I also know someone going through it right now and going to court in sept. My advice join group grandparents rights you will read so many heartbreaking stories from other grandparents going through the same thing.

Going down the legal route, if that is available in your country, would surely anger the parents and put the child in an awful situation.

It must be devastating to be estranged from a grandchild, you can only hope that when the child is old enough to have a voice they will seek out the grandparents.

Nannashirlz

Grandparents have no rights at all. No matter how much contact you had with your grandchild babysitting weekends etc I’m astray from one of my granddaughters I’ve begged and cried. Her mum went bitter when she split up with my son. I also know someone going through it right now and going to court in sept. My advice join group grandparents rights you will read so many heartbreaking stories from other grandparents going through the same thing.

You should be seeing your grandchild on your sons time, not their mothers time, or does your son not see his child at all? That sounds like the larger problem?

I’m very sorry you are hurting, but describing the child’s mother as “bitter” won’t help your case

Summerlove +1