For grandparents, it is important to understand what custody means and what grandparents rights are. There is a lot of happiness that comes along with raising grandchildren, but there are also many problems that can come about along the way. To get additional help with health care, finances and schooling you need to learn about the laws in your state.
Although lawyers often advertise expensive legal advice it is not worth spending $200 to $300 per hour to have a lawyer tell you information that is already available to you in a much easier, accessible format.
Resources such as my latest book No Greater Loss can provide you with the information you need at a fraction of the cost of going to a lawyer.
If you are a grandparents who is actually providing primary care for your grandchildren you may need to take affirmative steps to protect your grandparents rights in the case that your grandchildren’s parents later come back and wish to assert their own custody or wishes.
This can often be done by obtaining legal guardianship over the grandchildren, or by actually obtaining an order of custody. However you need to know the laws of custody and of your state to do so. Absent a formal legal grant of rights, grandparents may find it much more difficult to preserve their relationship with their grandchildren, or to protect their grandchildren from being restored to the custody of a parent who is not ready to assume responsibility for them.
You can get help on this from places like The Custody Center that specialize in making sure that grandparents know their grandparent rights and are able to exercise them under current law.
