Visitation Rights

Under the Oklahoma constitution, parents have the right to decide who their children are going to be around and unless a court tells them otherwise, they’re perfectly free to deny contact with the grandparent even when the child has a good relationship with that grandparent. Now, under Oklahoma law, if a parent is making that decision and you can satisfy several other requirements, the court might issue an order that can establish grandparents’ rights, but in the absence of such an order, that parent is going to be free to deny contact with anyone the parent wants to trial to avoid.

The Oklahoma Constitution grants sole authority to make decisions about who the child associates with to the parents. According to Oklahoma Attorney Justin Mosteller, under Oklahoma law, a grandparent can file to establish visitation rights if they meet a few requirements. First and foremost, the nuclear family has to be disrupted. Now, that means that mom and dad have gotten a divorce, one of the parents has died or the child was born out of wedlock, or maybe the rights were terminated to one or both of the parents.