How should Nevada grandparents handle their child’s divorce? (1)

If your adult child has just informed you that he or she is getting a divorce, you may be unsure of how to react. Of course, you will want to sympathize with and protect your child, and rightly so. A divorce is often difficult on many different levels, and any parent would want to offer assistance and support to their child as they work through that process.

However, if your adult child has children of his or her own, there are a host of additional factors you will need to consider in your dealings with your child, his or her spouse and your grandchildren as they sort out their divorce. In most cases, grandparents have no legal right to visitation with their grandchildren, so angering and alienating your child’s spouse could result in little or no access to the grandkids that you so dearly love.

Here are a few things that grandparents should and should not do when their adult child is navigating a divorce.

First, maintain a normal relationship with your grandchildren. Continue to contact and see them as often as you did before the split, and reassure their parents that you will talk to the kids about normal, non-divorce topics. Don’t give in to the urge to suddenly shower them with gifts. Maintaining the status quo in this area of their lives may provide the grandchildren with a much-needed safe harbor in the midst of all of the turmoil going on at home.

We will continue our discussion of the proper role of grandparents in our next blog post.

Source: The Huffington Post, “Grandparenting Well When Adult Children Divorce,” Marie Hartwell-Walker, Aug. 20, 2012