Grandparents have a unique impact on their grandchildren. Children visit with their grandparents. They receive love affection and ties to family relationships from their grandparents. The nurturing relationships grandparents and grandchildren have, provide an additional sense of stability for children that cannot be obtained from other relationships. In cases where grandchildren are the product of homes in turmoil, grandparents are a precious support system for their grandchildren.
Grandparents And Visitation
The issues involving grandparents’ relationships with their grandchildren and how the courts interpret grandparents’ rights to visitation with their grandchildren are based on the concept of what is in the children’s best interest. Should grandparents be deprived of their visitation rights, they have the burden of proving in the Family Court, in the State of New York, it would be in the children’s best interest to maintain a relationship and spend time with the grandparents.
Each case involving visitation rights for grandparents’ is unique. Grandparents who seek to build loving relationships with their grandchildren and have had a past history of visitation and contact with their grandchildren have a greater opportunity to succeed in grandparents’ visitation proceedings.
Prior to bringing a proceeding in the Family Court, the grandparents should lay out a history of contact with their grandchildren to establish periods of prior visitation, gift giving on birthdays and holidays, and other reasonable steps showing they have tried to maintain a relationship with their grandchildren that has been interfered with by either one or both of the children’s parents.
Grandparents Don’t Exist Forever
Grandparents don’t exist forever. They often die as the children grow up. Children should be entitled to at least their memories of a loving relationship they maintained with their grandparents.
About The Author
Elliot S. Schlissel, Esq. has been defending grandparent’s rights for more than 45 years. His law firm also represents fathers in father’s rights cases involving custody and visitation issues.
About Elliot S. Schlissel
