The article investigates the legal framework of social services’ work with parental contact as well as contact with other significant persons for children, within the child protection system. The intention is to discuss how issues in the legal regulation may affect the social services’ practical application of the law. This discussion includes fundamental and eternal questions in child protection such as children’s participation, voluntariness and coercion, as well as perspectives on family and children’s close relationships. It is concluded that the social services’ have a responsibility for children’s relationships in a broad sense, including relations to family members as well as other close relationships. This responsibility also encompasses careful and difficult balancing between individuals’ right to private and family life and the child’s right to protection. The social services practical possibilities to assume this responsibility vary between different situations. In some cases, higher expectations are placed on the social services than what is reasonable based on the legal tools the authority has at its disposal. In other cases, the social services have extensive powers to decide coercively over individuals without sufficient legal safeguards.