Multiple Studies Suggest Grandparents Should Be In Contact With Their Grandchildren
Video Transcribed: This is Tulsa attorney, Justin Mosteller with the Wirth Law Office, and I’m going to talk with you today about three reasons that grandparents should have contact with their grandchildren in Oklahoma.
Now, the first reason is that grandparents have a tremendous influence on the values and behaviors of their grandchildren. A recent study out of Cornell University showed that nine out of 10 adult grandchildren stated that their grandparents had a major impact on their values and behaviors as adults. Now, this is pretty intuitive to understand. I think all of us who were fortunate enough to have grandparents in our lives as children remember lessons that we learned from those grandparents, interactions we had with the grandparents that were really different from the time that we spent with our parents. Grandparents are able to transmit some deep societal and cultural wisdom that really doesn’t come from parents. It’s unique to the grandparent and children benefit from
that tremendously. Now, the second reason that grandparents should have regular contact with their grandchildren is that grandparents provide safety and security to that grandchild. Children who have grandparents in their lives have more adults in their lives that care for them and model good behaviors around them.
And for children who are going through, let’s say, a divorce, or have had a parent pass away, or had a parent’s rights terminated, they’re in a critical place that requires some good role models around them and grandparents are usually the ones that are able to provide that, that model for, of behavior and of emotional maturity.
Finally, grandparents fill a unique role for these children. The relationship that children have with their grandparents is unique in character from the relationship that they have with their parents. They’re able to talk about different things and oftentimes, children may not listen to their parents, but they might listen to a grandparent because the approach is different and the relationship is different. Kids in tough situations need adults around them that love them. Grandparents are there willing, ready and able to do, to fill that role in those children’s lives.
In Oklahoma, a grandparent can seek a visitation order if they’re being denied contact and have a previous relationship with that child and the nuclear family has been disrupted. In those circumstances, we often file grandparent visitation cases and we establish rights for those grandparents, so that they can make for sure that they can continue to be good role models in those children’s lives and to provide that safety and security.
If you are a grandparent in Oklahoma, and you’d like to discuss grandparent visitation with a qualified Oklahoma attorney, give us a call at the Wirth Law Office at (918) 932-2800. Thanks.