When parents divorce or separate, life changes for everyone, including grandparents. Keeping a strong relationship with your grandchildren can become difficult during family disputes. In San Diego, grandparents do have certain rights to seek visitation, but the law can feel confusing if you’re not familiar with it. If you want to stay active in your grandchildren’s lives, understanding your rights and how to assert them is critical.
Grandparent Visitation is Usually Up to The Parents
Most of the time, parents have control over their child’s contact with grandparents. They choose when and how often visits happen. Even after a divorce or separation, either parent may allow visitation during their assigned time. Judges have the authority to set rules or stop visits completely in rare situations where they think a visit could put the child in harm’s way. When the parents are still married, there’s not usually a way for grandparents to demand visitation.
When Grandparents Can Request Court-Ordered Visitation
Grandparents do not always have the right to see their grandchildren if a parent says no. However, in some situations, the law gives them a way to ask the court for visitation. Usually, this option is available when the child’s parents aren’t married, or if they are married but living apart for a significant stretch, not just a brief separation.
What a Judge Must Find to Grant a Visitation Request
If a grandparent can ask for visits through the court, approval is not automatic. The judge looks at whether there is a strongly established relationship between the grandparent and the grandchild. The connection must be one that is meaningful and ongoing.
Additionally, the judge has to decide that keeping this relationship outweighs the parents’ usual legal right to control who sees their child. If a parent objects, the court considers if cutting off or limiting contact would cause the child more harm than it would protect a parent’s authority.
The law cares most about what helps or hurts the child, not how it’s going to make the parents or grandparents feel.
Consider Mediation Before Taking Legal Action
Before heading to court over family matters, it can help to try mediation first. In mediation, you meet with a neutral third party whose job is to help everyone communicate and find common ground. Grandparents and parents can talk through their disagreements together in a less formal setting.
Mediation does not mean you have to work things out alone. You can still bring your lawyer who can look out for your rights and guide you through the process. Court tends to bring out the worst in family disputes, so solving the issue without going in front of a judge is usually a win for everyone involved.
Getting Legal Help for Grandparent Visitation in California
Securing the right to visit your grandchildren in California isn’t always easy, especially when emotions run high between families. When attempts to settle things privately don’t work, sometimes you have no choice but to take legal action and ask for visitation. Working with a family lawyer at this stage makes things a lot easier.
A San Diego family lawyer can explain what you need to show the court and help organize documents or letters that back up your request. They’ll explain how you can prove that granting your visitation request would be in the best interest of the child. If you have any questions about visitation or any part of the family law process, reach out today to schedule a free consultation.