State requirements / Hawaii
Hawaii parenting class requirement
Kids First, and the children attend too
Hawaii Family Court requires both parents, and children aged 6 to 17, to attend the Kids First program in divorce and paternity cases. Each circuit runs its own program, staffed by Family Court judges and licensed psychologists, and there is no participant fee.
The requirement at a glance
| Who must attend | Both parents, and children aged 6 to 17 of either party from this or any other relationship who have lived with the current family, unless a judge excuses them. Hawaii is the only state that requires the children to attend. Parties litigating custody, and children of never-married parents living in the same household, are covered too. |
| Hours required | About 2 in a single session |
| Deadline | No day count. The court schedules you onto an assigned date printed on its notice, after the case is filed. |
| Authority | HRS 607-5.6; Family Court notice |
| Fees and waivers | There is no participant fee at all. The program is funded by a surcharge collected at filing, waived for a party who received an initial filing fee waiver, and limited to one surcharge per case. |
| Our price | $25 for one parent, $50 for both parents on the same case. Scholarship seats are funded by donors, so no parent is turned away for money. |
| Our registry status | Planned for a later filing wave. Our acceptance guarantee applies wherever your court accepts an outside online provider. |
What the law actually says
“The special fund shall be used solely for expenditures related to providing education on all islands for separating parents in matrimonial actions and parties in parentage actions and their minor children.”
HRS 607-5.6(e)Quoted from the official text. Read it yourself at the source below.The part nobody explains
Filing your certificate
Nothing. The court schedules, registers, and records attendance itself, and the notice is a court-issued form docketed in your case.
If the deadline passes
Failure to attend may bring you before the court to explain, may be considered a factor in custody decisions, and may delay the granting of your divorce decree or paternity judgment.
Who approves providers in Hawaii
Each circuit runs its own program: Kids First in the First, Second, and Fifth Circuits, and Children First or Children in Transition on Hawaii Island. Content is delivered by Family Court judges and licensed psychologists, with trained facilitators running the children's groups. There is no vendor list and no application process. The only theoretical opening is a grant or purchase of service from the program's special fund, initiated by the Judiciary rather than by an applicant.
What you get from us
- The full course, start to finish, on a phone or a laptop, with your progress saved. Lifetime access, no thirty-day expiry and no extension fees.
- Your certificate the moment you finish, by email, free. A mailed paper copy is optional.
- Free instant verification for your court. A clerk or judge confirms the certificate at our verification page with no account and no phone call.
- Our acceptance guarantee: if your specific court declines this certificate, you get a full refund, no processing fee and no deadline to claim it.