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From GrandparentVisitationBlog.com by Grant D. Griffiths, Attorney at Law
September 25, 2006
Children Need Their Grandparents After Divorce
If
you are interested in the grandparent-grandchild relationship, you
might enjoy the following article, 'Kids Need Contact With Their
Grandparents After Divorce' by Eva Neuman:
When a family breaks
up, everyone suffers' children, parents and also grandparents, who
suddenly have to face the fact that they may not see their
grandchildren any more or if they are able to maintain contact, they
find it greatly reduced.
In many countries, grandparents have
visitation rights by law if it's in the best interest of the child.
However, the grandparents must prove this in family court. The parents
and grandparents are strongly urged to sit down and work out
arrangements responsibly and considerately before a fight erupts.
The relationship between children and their grandchildren is important.
'A
child learns another broad realm of experiences and acceptance through
their grandparents,' said professor Gerhard Amendt, a sociologist and
family researcher at the University of Bremen in Germany. 'They can
make the child feel a serenity that derives from their life experience
and their age.'
This perspective is different from that which
they could receive from their parents who have a stronger, more
structured influence on the life of a child.
Grandparents become
important figures for children, whose world often collapses when
parents separate. They sometimes become allies of the child, and the
child might find them more reliable than their parents in providing
comfort. They cannot be blamed for causing the sadness the child feels
during a breakup.
In a practical sense grandparents often take on new tasks when a couple with children splits up.
'Many
divorces would not be realized if there weren't grandparents involved,'
said Ingrid Gross, a lawyer specializing in family law in Augsburg,
Germany. They step in with financial support and help look after the
kids, filling in for the missing partner.
In many cases contact
with the grandparents on the side of the partner who maintains custody
of the children, usually the mother, is strengthened.
Maintaining
relations with the grandparents of the other partner, usually the
father, is often more difficult. However, grandparents can also help in
this case.
'While a child is still young, many fathers are happy
to be able to spend a weekend with the child at the grandparents' home
because there he has practical help in how to take care of and raise
the child,' Gross said.
Breakups involving children become very
problematic when the situation is contentious and laden with conflict,
and when one of the partners is granted sole custody of the child, said
Rita Boegershausen, co-founder of an initiative based in Essen,
Germany, for grandparents of children involved in separations and
divorce.
The danger in such cases is that the partners
automatically identify their in-laws as members of the 'enemy camp' and
cut off contact entirely.
'It's important that grandparents stay
out of the conflict as much as possible even though they most likely
feel closer to their own child than their son- or daughter-in-law,'
said Boegershausen. The best thing a grandparent can offer the child is
neutrality within the relationship.
'During visits grandparents
should never try to agitate the child's feelings toward his mother or
father, and should keep a straight face with regard to the situation,'
Gross said. The child will repeat what he heard at home, and that could
bring an end to the grandparents' access to the child.
Thanks to Jeffrey Lalloway of the California Divorce and Family Law blog for his post about this article.
Source for Post South Carolina Family Law Blog.
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