Legal Question in Family Law in Illinois

Re: grandparent rights in IL

In Illinois, grandparent's rights is usually limited to getting visitation with your grandchild. Visitation with your grandchild against the parent's wishes is very difficult.

One of the most important things you must do to get visitation is prove that the grandchild has a strong emotional bond to you and that their health safety and welfare will be negatively affected if you are not able to visit them.

Generally, for you to prove this, you need to have already established a bond with your grandchild. Thus, if you have only seen your grandchild sporadically, it might be very hard to get visitation.

An example of where a grandparent might be granted visitation would be the following scenario:

Grandparent took care of child for the first 5 years of child's life and then the mother decides to take the child away from the grandparent and denies visitation.

I wish you the best of luck in your attempt to establish/maintain a bond with your grandchild.