Learn about Your Rights
Video Transcript: So can parents deny visitation rights to grandparents? Hi, I’m Ty Smith, attorney in Oklahoma with Wirth Law, and the short answer is, yeah, they can.
Grandparents, though they have the word parent in the name, do not have the same constitutional rights that an actual bio parent or legal parent has. Parents have the right to make legal decisions for the kid, they have a right to decide where they live and they have some say and they have a right to see them, grandparents do not.
Okay, Grandparents, as far as I can tell, are not dissimilar to cousins in their legal rights to see people and you think about it, if a cousin filed for a court order to have visitation rights to see his cousin, yeah, that doesn’t make any sense, right? But as far as the law is concerned, that’s kind of the way they’re treated, okay?
Now, that doesn’t mean that a grandparent can’t get visitation rights to see their grandkid, it just means that you got to go through some steps, the big one being convincing a judge that it’s in the best interest of the kid that the grandparent be granted visitation rights at the very least.
Typically if the kid is in a nuclear family, meaning mom, dad, still together and they’re taking care of the kid, if both parents say, “No, grandpa, grandma, you can’t see the kid,” you’re probably not going to get that, that’s, that’s pretty solid.
But if the family has been broken in some way, or disrupted to use a less problematic term, a disrupted family, then that opens up the door, it makes it much more likely for you to get the opportunity to have visitation rights, and, once more, I’m not saying it’s impossible, even if both parents say no, I’m just saying it’s a higher bar because now you not only have one set of constitutional rights saying no, you have two, okay? So that’s going to be the job of whatever attorney that you hire.
They’re going to try to show the court from evidence that you present, and the attorney presents for you, that you being involved in at least visiting the kid is going to be to their benefit and they’re not going to be as well off or they’ll even be harmed if you’re not allowed in their life.
If you would like to speak to an attorney about your chances in your case or if you have any questions regarding this matter, I would love to speak to you about those things. Once more, I’m OKC grandparents rights lawyer Ty Smith, you can find me at theoklahomacityattorney.com or you can call my office at (405) 888-5400.
