If your son or daughter had a child with their spouse, but the couple is not together, you may never get to see this child – your grandchild. This can be sad and hard for grandparents, but there might be something you can do about it. Here are several steps you may want to take to try to obtain visitation rights for this child.

Talk to the custodial parent of the child

Even if your child is not involved in their child's life, you may still have rights to see the child, and a good place to start is by talking to the custodial parent of the child. You may want to try calling them first. If you cannot get a hold of them, you could try using social media to contact them. Mailing a letter is another option. The goal is to let them know that you want to be involved in this child's life and to ask if they will allow this.

The custodial parent will have two main options. The first is to work with you to arrange times for visits to take place. The other response is to deny you the right to see the child. If this happens, you may need to seek legal help in order to obtain visitation rights with your grandchild.

Talk to a lawyer

Talking to a family lawyer is the next step you should take if the custodial parent will not respond to you or let you see your grandchild. The lawyer will be able to help you find a way to get the right to see the child, and this may begin with a court-ordered paternity or maternity test. If this proves that your son or daughter is the other parent of the child, you should have no problem convincing the court to give you rights to see the child in question.

There are multiple outcomes that can come from these cases, but it will often involve going to court. The court will hear the case and will rule on how to handle it, but the outcome will likely be that you will get the visitation rights you long for. These might be supervised or not, and they might be weekly, biweekly, or monthly, but it will be better than never getting to see your grandchild.

If you have questions about this or do not know how to begin the process of seeking visitation rights, contact a family lawyer at offices like Ritter & LeClere APC Attorneys At Law.