State law is not going to give you the right to visit your grandchild automatically, but in some states you have the ability to ask a court for visitation rights. In those states, a judge will make the final decision after looking at your family situation.
Each one of our 50 states once had laws that gave grandparents the right to ask the court to consider their request to visit their grandchildren, but that was unfortunately the past. Courts in many places have made grandparent visitation far more difficult to get from a legal standpoint, deciding that the concept goes against the rights of the parents.
In fact in some states grandparents can’t even ask the court to consider their request to visit with their grandchildren.
However, in some states grandparents visitation laws have been upheld by the courts. In those states grandparents still have to prove in court that they should be able to visit their grandchildren. This is very hard to do for a variety of reasons, but it is not impossible.
The first step to take if you are in this situation is to take charge of your grandparents rights by getting informed. Visit The Custody Center and see what legal rights you have in the state that you live in.
In some of these states the laws say the court should decide based on what is in the best interest of the child. In other states the grandparents have to prove that the grandchild will be harmed if he or she does not visit with the grandparents.
The Custody Center can tell you whether the grandparent visitation law in the state where your grandchild lives has been upheld or made invalid by the courts. And it can help you decide what to do if your grandparents rights are being violated.
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