Should grandparents have the right to access their grandchildren if the parents don't want this?

[Life2Short4Nonsense]

Came across a discussion about the rights of grandparents to see the grandchildren if this goes against the parents' wishes.

Should grandparents be able to use the courts to get access to their grandchildren or should the parents be able to decide, as long as they are fit parents?

YABU: Grandparents should have the right to have access, unless a judge decides otherwise.

YANBU: The parents should decide, unless the parents are unfit to parent.

I have to hand my children over to my abusers for contact due to them being rich enough to get a Barrister to abuse me further in court.

Tragically for them though, I managed to get contact supervised so they spent thousands of pounds to not get no more than they got at the mediation stage (which broke down due to them, shouting at me and bullying me in front of the officer)

Yes I do. I think many people can only imagine this through the lens of good parents with 'toxic' grandparents who they feel justified in removing contact from.
Out in the real world there are countless situations where contact with GP provides DC with much needed security and stability while their parents live quite chaotic lives, with lower levels of unhealthy behaviours, disruptive relationship changes and volatile behaviours. Not extreme enough to warrant formal intervention (the bar for acceptable parenting is low) but nonetheless disturbing for children. In these situations if contact with GPs is withdrawn on parental whim, there should be a means for GPs to reestablish it in the interests of the child.

I don’t agree with either.

I think it should be the parents decide unless a Judge decides otherwise but the parents being unfit should not be the only requirement.

I think it's a shame if it's a falling out and the parents stop contact with otherwise caring and loving grandparents, out of spite. But obviously if they are a danger to the CGs then yes of course contact should be denied

They could be abusive or have major issues, they could have their kids and parented demand things of them and when they push back 'well you are not seeing them', they could be totally normal but their kids or painted could be doing some weird territory thing and treating their kids like a possession 'they are mine', there could be genuine reasons, 'you need to do what I tell you your sole purpose as a grandparenr is to be dictated too'

It be all this, some of it or nothing

But once children are old enough they should have the right to decide for themselves

Absolutely this. The poster saying it's not the parents place to do this is mad! Plenty of unsuitable grandparents about!

I was brought up by a very abusive mother - physically and emotionally. When dd was 11yo I realised my mother was starting to emotionally abuse her. I was still in touch with my mother at the time and she would say nasty things about me to dd (this started when dd was about 5yo but I only found out when she was 11yo). When dd was 11yo she told me something and me and my brother confronted my mum who lied and said she hadn't said it. Said dd was a psychopath who should be locked up.

It took me a couple of months to go No Contact with her as it was a hard decision. My brother went NC straight away and was adamant I needed to to protect dd. I had a thread on here with 100s of people telling me I had to protect dd and go NC.

When I did it was awful. She was reporting me to social services saying I was an unfit parent. Absolutely no substance to this at all. But wild accusations were made. I am a registered HCP so it could have been bad for me job wise as well. My mother was a teacher so seen as an upstanding person......I'm sure many of her friends believed her, still do believe her I should think. I do sometimes panic and think what if she had been believed by people in authority? She was desperate to still see dd. Luckily it never happened.

If she had been allowed contact she would have caused no end of emotional damage to dd and tried to wreck my relationship with her. When dd was 5yo she used to make dd write letters to me telling me what a bad mummy I was for working/doing housework and how sad it made dd. She told dd to give me the letters and dd only told me this recently, and that she would rip the letters up after leaving my mum's house as she didn't want to give me the letters.

Mum knows best.

If she's deemed an unfit parent DCs are often placed with grandparents, then they get rights.

Changing the law would cause chaos.

@CormorantStrikesBack pretty similar story here only before I went NC and while I was actually living my best life with my child and helping my mother out after she put her hubbie in a nursing home and I am driving her places, inviting her out with us, cooking for her freezer so she ate well she was out there going behind my back for absolutely no reason bar the fact she is a petty pathetic compulisive liar ringing social services on me, ringing my childs school and telling them I neglect him etc so I went NC and stopped her seeing him with the result shes contacted every family member she could to slander me, she called into one of my neighbours houses to badmouth me and to absolutely no avail as my child is not in the least neglected, far from it, but now shes the victim because she does not see her grandchild. No accountability for what she has put us through. I am in therapy because of that witch and her lies about me and about my son. It will be a cold day in hell before she gets to see him again. She is poison.

Few parents deny their own parents contact with grandchildren without good reason, though quite a number seem to think they are entitled to unlimited free child care. This proposal would enable vexatious litigation.

After spending too much of my life on Mumsnet, a recurring theme is how some grandparents get v obsessed with seeing their GCs and ignore the relationship with their children.

Fundamentally the way you see your GCs is by having good relationships with your DC.

Announcing you are going to court for grandparents rights is a good way to completely torpedo your relationship with the GCs parents.

For these grandparents who would do 'anything ' it never seems to include listening to their son or daughter.

@AnnaMagnani See I think the same. My mother for all her ringing social services because she was 'worried' I was neglecting my son has not contacted him since she caused all her shite last years. Worried really? He has a state of the art iphone she can contact him on but nope, not a text to ask how he is. She is not worried about him shes just pissed off I wont bow down to her this time as I did over the years. I warned her every time over the years when she had done something to hurt or humiliate me that if she ever did it to my son she would be gone from his life and she did. She embarassed him and humiliated him in his school and in front of his peers. This was not about wanting to see him it was only about trying to hurt me. Shes stil playing the victim though.

There are many MANY threads on here about narc parents/grandparents and I can tell you I would emmigrate before letting my mother get rights to my child.

It’s a hideous thought that a grandparent could take a parent to court to force access to their grandchild, personally. I’m NC with my father, who was emotionally and physically abusive throughout my childhood, and have been since I was 14 when I walked out of his house having been slapped across the face, kicked and spat at for the last time and never looked back. My toddler son will never meet him, I’d like it if he never even managed to lay eyes on my child to be honest, but my father is exactly the manipulative kind of prick who would opt to drag me through court to see my child just for the ‘win’ over me. He doesn’t have a good bone in his body.

When we severed contact with my mother and stepfather, she threatened to make a formal application for contact with our children. The police officer who was dealing with our case against her for harassment told me that a court would never grant access to a grandparent if the parents were still together and both opposed.

@sprigatito If the parents were still together? What about if, like in my case you parent alone?

Anyway in my case it is a moot point as my son has decided he wants nothing to do with his poisonous granny anyway.

I'd say some grandparents would complain they were being prevented from seeing their grandkids if they weren't visited at least once a week for several hours. Some might even expect daily contact. It's down to the parents who the kids sees and how frequently, if at all. Some people had really toxic upbringings and have PTSD from it. They're hardly going to risk damaging their children in the same way by exposing them to it.

This

No. It should not be default. My mum is a toxic and vile human being. She was rude and abusive over a long period of time to me and my husband. She nearly drove me to suicide.

Finally she accused my husband of having a sexual interest in one of my DC. My husband’s job involved contact with children. This was based on no evidence whatsoever. We went no contact for several years. I was persuaded to see her again by my sibling as she is old and needs help (sibling lives abroad). My mum did apologise (after first denying she had said it).

In those circumstances, I think I was right to go ‘no contact’.

Turn this round:
should children have the right to a relationship with their grandparents

As a widow I absolutely disagree. As my children's only parent I get to decide who they have contact with, including my late husband's family. Why on earth would I need a third party? Your post is extremely insulting.

My children have a good relationship with my in laws because I trust my in laws. But if this changed, I would step in to protect my children.

Dear God, dont you understand the role of parents?

Again as I explained upthread my children wanted to maintain relationships with my parents and my FIL because they personally (my children) were not party to or aware of the abuse that went on in the families. Children should have decent parents and grandparents, it would be ludicrous to suggest that is a right for children to have decent parents and grandparents because it ignores nefarious aspects of human nature.

I know a couple who went to court to regain contact with their grandchildren after their DIL divorced their son.

The son (kids’s dad) is a wrong ‘un, but his parents had a great relationship with their grandchildren and had provided regular childcare for them since they were toddlers. The grandparents were successful in regaining contact.

It's entirely up to the parents actually. Extended family do not have a right to be in any child's life.

The court will generally only grant this right if there is an already established relationship. In that instance the child has the right to maintain that relationship.

The child being the one having rights does not preclude the parents making decisions in the child's best interests in the majority of cases.