Possibke Child Neglect

Be the grandma's friend and provide your emotional support. Offer playdates and babysitting (for example when she has legal appointments) and foster the friendship the girl has with your daughter.
Other than that don't get involved and MYOB. Seems like the grandma needs a lawyer (if she doen't already have one) and lots of good luck.

One last thing... I would strongly encourage you to NEVER make a negative comment about either of this girl's parents in front of her, her grandma or your own child. You can think whatever you want about the family, but if you or your daughter bring it up you are only adding more pain to an already terrible situation - even if you are just trying to be supportive.
Good luck!

Be sure that Grandma is documenting everything she observes with lack of parent visits, include his comments and conditions after visits, his poor hygiene after visits etc ( should include dates and photos in a notebook/ournal she keeps as part of her case). She may even want to give it to a close friend to keep at their home if she can . Can Gma afford to see a social worker and an attorney who specializes in family law to see what steps she needs to take to hopefully get custody of her grandson? if so I would do so for sure. She may also want to call some law firms in her area to get attorney fees for a consultation and an estimate of hiring an attorney of she can afford to . She may also want to be an advocate for her grandson by making an appt with his school principal and or guidance counselor over the summer confidentially to let them know of her concerns and plans to get custody. School may be able to provide back up attendance records of all the time the boy has been late or not been at school to help her case. The Grandma should feel no guilt about "emotional damage" this may cause in her relationship with his parents since they are such poor examples of parents. She may be saving this little guys life or at least saving him from following a similar path they took. Is there a nice and good Grandpa involved or a good Uncle in this little guys life who can be a great and loving male role model for this child? Gma may also want to see if she can get some counseling with a child psychologist for her g-son.She is a wonderful person to take this on. May God bless her and the grandson.

IF she had them for a solid 6 months with no visits from mom or dad, she has what is called "vested interest" and can get custody just off of that alone. Now, it is different in every state. That is TX. We are currently trying to get custody of some children, and, we are going to try to make it to the 6 month mark. Not going out of our way to try, just documenting "mom's" actions and so forth. DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT. And, witnesses are great. A child's testimony is worth a million words also. I have a friend who works for CPS here and, he is the one who told me what to do.

Yes, tell the Grandma to get a notebook and right down EVERYthing she can think of that he has done, what's been going on, if she has a date and a time, put it in there..........get stories from other people.........if they are bad stories, have her see if they will do an affidavit....or come to court.............

Every time something happens with the child's Mom or Dad, but sure to put it in the notebook, date, time what was said, good and bad......

Plus she needs to write down things that the child says when she gets back from the parents house.......good and bad, although they usually only state the bad.........

As for the little girl, this will have a HUGE impact on her life.........they say that a child is made by the time they are 5 years old............but hopefully with a lot of love and security, she will over come this mess........but I would suggest getting her help by finding someone to counsel her.

Good Luck and hopefully you can help by being her friend too and letting her know that all parents are not like hers.

Poor baby- you're a good mom to be concerned for this poor kid! The one thing I can say is : DOCUMENT EVERYTHING. You- and the grandma- both need to write down EVERY single time there is an incident that is bad for the child, whether physically neglectful or emotionally. This includes not being back when they are supposed to, any violation of the visitation agreement, anytime the child is not clean or well-fed, etc. You must write down everything, dates and times, to show the court that this is a pattern of neglect and not just a one-time thing.

Also, has the court appointed a guardian ad litem or assigned anyone to look out for the child's interests? This is supposed to be a third party, with no personal stake in the situation, who will be able to assess the situation.

Make sure grandma stays on GOOD TERMS with this person, no matter how frustrating this whole process can be. Anyone from the court or social services who is looking into things is in a position to be very influential with the judge according to what they report.

You may be asked to be a witness at a court hearing and to report things you have seen or changes you have noticed in the child's behavior. If this happens, don't trash talk the mom and dad- but say if you observed them intoxicated, etc. and that when they dropped off the girl she was dirty and told you she had not eaten, etc.

Be factual and make it clear that because your children are friends, you are concerned for this little girl and have observed first hand how she is obviously better off being cared for by her grandma.

Good luck and god bless! I hope this all works out for the best!!