To determine the degree to which state legislatures had absorbed and acted on this consensus about what parenting arrangements work best for children when parents are living separately, in 2014 NPO undertook the first ever evaluation of states’ statutory provisions promoting shared parenting. NPO issued an updated and enhanced report in 2019. This 2025 Report details the progress made since 2019.

A handful of states have made very significant progress in the past 6 years—enacting strong legal presumptions of equal shared parenting. Several others have taken positive, though less dramatic, steps toward improving outcomes for children of divorced and separated parents. Unfortunately, the current study found that, despite the research that now strongly supports the desirability of a legal presumption of equal shared parenting, most state legislatures have taken no significant steps toward protecting children’s relationship with both parents when parents are living apart.

In the 2025 NPO shared parenting study:

• 6 states received ‘A’s

• 10 states and the District of Columbia ‘B’s

• 19 states received ‘C’s

• 14 states received ‘D’s

• 2 states received ‘F’s