Your Parenting Plan: The Children’s Bill of Rights in Divorce

When parents separate or divorce, the immediate focus is understandably on adult tasks: making legal decisions, finances, and parenting schedules. But for children, the experience is very different. Their sense of stability, family identity, and emotional security may suddenly feel uncertain.

That’s why many courts, mediators, and parenting programs emphasize a framework known as the Bill of Rights for Children Whose Parents are Separated or Divorced—a set of principles designed to guide parents in ways that support and protect children after their parents’ separation.

In New York, these rights appear in the New York State Parent Education and Awareness Program (PEAP) handbook, a resource guide that many separating or divorcing parents receive when attending a New York-certified parenting education class.  The goal of the program is simple: help parents understand how divorce affects them and their children and how parental behavior can shape how well children adjust.

The Bill of Rights for Children Whose Parents are Separated or Divorced is not a law. Instead, it is a set of child-centered statements that guide parents on what children need most during a family transition.

And while the framework appears in New York’s materials, the ideas behind it apply...