Grandparents child arrangements order

[AndreaB1975]

Well, I'm a nana of 2 gorgeous grandsons, and my oldest son is their dad, he isn't either their mam but both have new partners. My son has completely turned his back on us. His family. He has been going through stuff but been awful to me. To cut a long story short, me and his step dad went yo try and sort our stuff with him, he got very angry, he went towards my husband I jumped in, we left but this really affected my husband, he rang the police and they advised us but they went to the mams house must be what they do, we said we had no safe guarding concerns so did she, 3 days later she stopped us seeing boys, and he has said it a few times. We have been in their lives constant had had them twice a month they stayed overnight, I went to my MIAM mediation meeting, she declined now I need to go to legal route. It's heart breaking. Solictor will try and negotiate if not I will need to get permission from court. If we have been constant in their lives will this be positive, I haven't seen them since may but feels ages xx any advice please..

I think parents should be able to decide who sees their children and it really is up to your son to facilitate your contact with his children. If he doesn't, then that is on him alone.

IANL but, from what I have read about in other situations, being able to show you have had regular involvement with the children may support a court order to have continued contact, if it can be demonstrated this is in the best interests of the children. You'd need to seek formal legal advice about that. However, please do consider whether it is ever in the best interest of a child to have the unsettled upset in his or her household of forced contact with family that the parents would rather have distance from. Is this about your needs or the children's?

Honestly I think you should work on your relationship with your son and see your grandchildren on his contact time - not put his ex partner who he has kids with through the absolute stress of a court case to secure visiting time with them. That's not in the best interests of the grandchildren or the mother in my mind, you're making her stressed, putting her through a court case and potentially giving her less time with her DC when your relationship with your son is the issue.

The fact your energy is on a court case rather than repairing the relationship with your son just seems like totally misdirected energy to me, as did your confrontation by going to his house / ringing the police.

How involved have you actually been in their care, 2 nights a month isn't alot.

My parents saw my DD everyday until she was 10 as they kindly provided childcare for me. That's what courts mean about grandparents being very involved and it being detrimental to the child if they lose a connection with their GP. Not people they see a couple of times a month.

It sounds like you and your husband are the issue, you need to step back and let the parents separation settle (stop adding stress to an already stressful situation) , rebuild your relationship with your son, and then look at rebuilding the relationship with the grandchildren.

If I were their mother, the last thing I'd want when dealing with my ex would be his mother and her boyfriend wading in with their 'rights' or going round the ex's house for arguments when my children were seeing him.

Are you talking about one mother or two, your posts are a bit unclear (apologies if English isn’t your first language).

You need to deal with your son, not the Mum - she is nothing to do with you. I feel sorry for her - having to deal with your son if he is as bad as you say and now you threatening her with legal
action. It’s also possible that the kids don’t actually want to stay with you.

If they are with their dad every other weekend, and then previously with you twice a month, maybe mum wants some weekend time herself with the kids?

I would really strongly advise you not to try and go down the court route.

You are really unlikely to get anywhere - you do not have any automatic right to see these children - but what you absolutely will do is completely wreck ANY possible relationship with their mother(s). And that will almost certainly mean no way back to contact. Rightly so, too - the parents will ultimately not want a potentially aggressive and disruptive element in their lives.

Your best bet is to make respectful contact with the parents and wait.

I'm so sorry you're going through this. My mum is NC with my brother's children. Something his ex partner (the children's mother) respects and upholds even though they're not together. They're presenting a united front on a decision which affects their children. My brother is a very unstable man. He's announced he has no parents, no siblings and cut us off without provokation. It's very very sad but feels like anything we could do is only going to end in a situation where the children are put in the middle and potentially made to feel disloyal to their dad's wishes. So we've quietly bowed out.

One thing mum has done is set them up a bank account (in her name but she knows its for them) and an email address. Whenever there's a day she's thinking about them or she's with her other grandchildren she sends them an email in a 'this is a day where we missed you' sense. Very lightheartedly and with no guilt. She also puts the equivalent money that she spent on the others (entrance tickets, ice creams etc) into the bank account. Think she's hoping one day they'll get back in touch and she'll be able to say she never stopped thinking about them.

It is possible but highly unlikely to happen simply on the basis of having them over twice a month. There appears to be more to the story and taking the children’s mother to court is arguably not in their best interest.

My PIL took us to court seeking an order giving them access to our children.

They lost. They received nothing but a firm telling off from the judge, and an order to pay our fix figure legal bill in addition to their own.

We had always had our differences, but we kept them in our lives. Having them bring legal action against us, seeking that level of control, putting our lives in the hands of a court- is unforgivable.

Any lawyer worth their salt will tell you that you are unlikely to win. Not only will you lose in court but this will be the nail in the coffin for seeing any of them.

How could they ever trust you after this?

Are they 'using them to hurt' you?

Or have they reasonably decided that people with whom they have an acrimonious relationship, who show up unannounced demanding things, who recently had an altercation with the dad that involved the police being called and conducting a safeguarding check- aren't a positive and helpful presence in the children's life at this time?

I'm guessing there is a lot you left out- but just what you described sounds dramatic and stressful. They already have two kids, shuffled between two homes. Do they need more drama and demands from extended family? Or could they use some support?

You don't show much insight into their perspective.

They are the parents. They are more important than you. Causing stress and drama to the parents is not in the best interest of the children.

Back off. Show respect. Let tempers cool.

Then apologise, and say that when they are ready, you would love to buy them a coffee and chat. That you love them and you're sorry it's gotten so bad.

Repair the relationship with the parents.

Parents don't leave small children with people they don't trust.

I agree with posters saying that you will be better trying to repair your relationship with your son, or if that is irredeemable, with his ex, than by pursuing them through the courts.

What is indisputably in your grandchildren's best interests is for their parents to be able to amicably co-parent them, without any added drama from fractious grandparent relationships. If you/your dh are able to support this/act as mediators between them if needed, and provide stability to the grandchildren, then great. If you are adding to arguments, tempers, involving police and court hearings then you are absolutely not helping and unless you believe the parents are not safeguarding their own DC you should step away.

In an ideal world, you would be involved with your GC and would largely see them during your son's contact time. Unless their mother invites you to be involved during her contact time. Taking her through the courts is unlikely to help her, your son or your GC.

You can obviously apply but what end are you looking at? Their parents are already seperated. Your son has EOW and a weeknight. Both parents only have EOW with their kids. Who you planning on them taking time from? I've heard grandparents rights being granted but not a lot of contact. More the right to send cards on birthdays or phone calls.

You're way more likely to get infinitely more if you can work out amicably with parents.

I'm a bit confused - at first I thought your son didn't see his own children so therefore you didn't see them, but I think actually your son does see his DC.

It would be good if you could clarify why SS were called - because of your son or your husband?
I think there's a lot more to this than what OP has said.

Also, I can't figure out if there is one or two mothers for your GC.

Why did you go to mediation with the ex rather than your own son for contact? You're unlikely to be granted anything in court unless you had a substantial input in their care and the DC have been massively impacted by the change. You're better off trying to repair relations with your son. I'd imagine the court application could permanently ruin your relationship with your son and grandchildren. Better to focus on what happened with your son, taking any responsibility on yours and your DH's side and fixing that relationship, which in turn opens up a relationship with your GC.

If you take them to court to gain access to your grandchildren and to try and override their parents decision, you will be weaponising the children - against your son and the ex - parents don’t cut off grandparents without reason. I don’t think parents with parental responsibility are weaponising children by cutting off people they consider toxic. Your altercation with your son at his house sounds very toxic.
Back off or you risk losing them forever.

I think your lawyers are ripping you off. Grandparents have no rights as far as I'm led to believe?

You'd be better trying to mend fences with either of the parents. Offer babysitting or whatever.

Hope you get it sorted. It'd be a shame for the boys to lose out.

Grandparents do not have any automatic right to apply for contact. They have to apply for permission from the court first. But grandparents can and do get CAOs enforcing contact. I'm not saying it is a good idea for OP, or even that she would succeed, but it is certainly possible.

Grandparents have standing to apply.

The court has to hear them. That alone can cost thousands in legal fees and take a year of waiting and stress.

Then the court will consider best interests of the child, looking at a wide range of factors.

One of which will be practicality. Our PIL sought access every other weekend. The judge rather incredulously asked their lawyer why they thought our children should miss out on sports, play dates, friends birthdays and downtime at home on the weekend to facilitate their grandparents wishes.

In this situation the children's time is already split between mum and dad. So why on earth should they lose their limited time with their parents. It's not in the best interest of children who are already shuffled back and forth with custody. No sensible judge is going to think the children will benefit from being tugged in yet another direction, and caught up in yet another fractured and acrimonious relationship breakdown.

Whose time does OP propose to intrude upon?

And the same question- these children will be in school all week before long. Should they miss out on being in a karate or soccer club, and attending their little friend's birthdays - sorry I can't - granny's decided she's more important.

Not in their best interest.

A sensible grandmother would buy their mother a bunch of flowers- apologise for massively overstepping and ask to see everyone when the time is right.

Not storm off to a lawyer demanding her share of the pie.

I’m a grandparent and I would hate to not see my dgc.
However I have no legal right. If your dgc are well cared for by their parents then unfortunately you have to back off.

My advice is give them space, be there if the parents reach out and keep your thoughts on their parenting to yourself.

A friend of mine was pt childcare for the first two years of her dgc life.
The ds and dil split up and she was not allowed contact again. She would see her dgc in the supermarket with his dm and couldn’t approach him.
When he was 16 she put a card through his door and in it was a letter saying that although she hadn’t seen him she and his dgf had always cared and thought about him.
He asked questions and started seeing his dgp’s again.

Honestly the courts are overwhelmed with trying to sort out actual parents visitation not to mind grandparents into the mix
As everyone has said there are no legal rights here so I'd be really surprised if a solicitor has told you otherwise? Your son has limited enough time with his kids , I can totally see what he doesn't want to share them on the limited time he has with parents he is estranged from.
Of course you're gutted and miss them but don't waste your money trying to pursue this legally. I'd let the dust settle and hope that tempers calm down over a bit of time .

Despite a lawyer upthread already saying that grandparents can and do get CAOs, posts following those are still telling the OP she has 'no chance'.

She definitely has a chance.

She is an engaged and established grandparent - she has regularly had the children in her care, overnight too - so despite court not being the best route for anyone (parents included), she almost certainly will get permission to apply for a CAO (unless there are safeguarding reasons why that should not occur).

Someone above suggested taking flowers to the mum - I think that's a great idea and OP should try it. OP should go, apologise, say she doesn't want to go to court, but that she wants to maintain the relationship with the children and will abide by any rules the mum decides to put in place. It may work - but if not, then court is definitely an option.

Hi OP, how did you get on with getting access to your Grandchildren?

We have just applied to the court as the mother of our grandsons is alienating them from us since our son passed away. We have always been a constant presence in our Grandsons lives since they were born and we can evidence that. Our solicitor says we have a very good case and the mother is not engaging with anyone. She hasn’t responded to any letters or the attempts by the Mediator to engage.

Even the Mediator said that it will not look good for her in family court the fact she has ignored all attempts to engage with her.

At this point I just want to see my Grandsons & hopefully the court will grant that. Whether she complies or not is a different matter & this may prove to be a costly mistake for her as the Judge can make her pay our costs.

@DutifulDaughterWifeMother I am sorry for the loss of your son and for your DIL’a loss of her DH.

How recently did he pass away and how often were you seeing the children before he died?

What do you mean by alienation - simply not letting you see them or describing you to them in insulting terms?

It’s been 6 years & we were seeing them every other day. He always brought them round and we had regular FaceTime. Not seeing them and stopping them from even acknowledging us. Living in a village we have a close knit community & it is hard not being able to hug them. We see them from a distance & it is heartbreaking.