Safety first. It is now the public policy of Arizona to protect the child over parental access. And children are protected as victims of domestic violence under the Alec and Lydia Act. Child abuse is no longer just a factor to balance in the best interests of a child. In the past the victim parent carried the burden to show that the child was not safe with the abuser. Now, child abuse falls within most definitions of domestic violence and that distinction matters. That distinction is what triggers the Alec and Lydia Act. Child safety is now the priority. The entire scheme of the Alec and Lydia Act connects the dots that have always been a challenge to connect in court: parents who commit domestic violence are dangerous to their children whether or not the child knows about or witnesses the domestic violence.
What Changed on June 22, 2026
The Alec and Lydia Act amended A.R.S. § 25-403.03, the statute that governs legal decision-making and parenting time where there is domestic violence. It now mandates the legal presumption against decision making and parenting time when there is a finding of domestic violence. Domestic violence is contrary to a child’s best interests. That presumption means that the burden shifts to the abusive parent to prove that their parenting rights are in the child’s best interests. The burden requirements are detailed in the Act and are much more than a class or testimony of reformed behavior.
Under the amended statute A.R.S. § 25-403.03(M)(2)(a), domestic violence means conduct perpetrated by one parent against the other parent, or against a minor child living in either parent's household. (emphasis added.)
Most of what we might have labeled as child abuse before the Alec and Lydia Act can now be labeled domestic violence in family court. The label matters because it changes the analysis and the protections for children and triggers the Alec and Lydia Act.
Preponderance of the Evidence
Under A.R.S. § 25-403.03(C), a claim of domestic violence is established by a preponderance of the evidence, meaning more likely than not. It also states that corroboration from exhibits or witness testimony is not required. Your testimony can establish it. And your evidence can include what your child has told you or others.
What Counts as Domestic Violence Against a Child
Under A.R.S. § 25-403.03(M)(2)(a), domestic violence is one of two characterizations. Either one is sufficient to prove domestic violence on its own. You do not need both. First, there is a list of abuses borrowed from the criminal statutes and second, there is the definition of “coercive control” as detailed in the Alec and Lydia Act.
The Criminal Statute List
The list is found in the criminal statutes for domestic violence conduct. See Section 25-403.03(M)(2)(a)(i), which refers to A.R.S. § 13-3601, subsection A, Arizona's domestic violence statute, which then lists the offenses defined as domestic violence. Most of these acts of domestic violence do not leave a physical injury or mark. None of them require a criminal charge, a conviction, a police report or a DCS report. Here are some applicable ones that affect children.
- Touching with intent to injure, insult or provoke
- Threatening or intimidating behavior
- Endangerment of the child
- Harassment
- Cruelty to animals
- Sexual assault
Coercive Control List from the Alec and Lydia Act
The second category of domestic violence is coercive control which is now defined in Arizona law as domestic violence. Section 25-403.03(M)(2)(a)(ii) points to coercive control, which § 25-403.03(M)(1) defines as a pattern of violent, threatening, coercive or emotionally abusive conduct by one parent against the other, without consent or justification. The statute lists fifteen behaviors:
- Sexual or other physical assault
- Threatening to kill or injure a person, including oneself, or a household pet
- Displaying, accessing, assembling or cleaning a firearm or other dangerous weapon in the other parent's presence where the circumstances imply threatened unlawful use
- Confinement or other restraining words or actions restricting the other parent's freedom of movement or lawful activity
- Isolation from friends and family
- Monitoring or regulating financial activity, economic resources or access to services
- Stalking or harassment
- Demeaning, degrading or humiliating words or actions
- Threatening to publish sensitive information, including sexually explicit material, of the other parent or a member of that parent's family
- Threatening to make reports to law enforcement
- Threatening, initiating or using civil litigation to force the other parent to defend a false or frivolous claim, or to regulate or restrict lawful or constitutionally protected activity
- Damaging property owned or lawfully possessed by the other parent or a member of that parent's family
- Jeopardizing the immigration status of the other parent or a member of that parent's family by act or conscious omission
- Forcing the other parent to commit a crime against that parent's stated wishes
- Using surveillance or tracking technology to facilitate or aggravate any of these behaviors
Domestic Violence Against Children: What This May Look Like in Real Life
Sometimes the domestic violence is very obvious and leaves a mark where the child is slapped, spanked or pinched. More often it is much more subtle abuse and sometimes hard to actually recognize or explain. Individual acts may look small or insignificant in isolation. Woven together they make a clear tapestry of abuse that traumatizes children.
Families and children who have lived with an abuser will recognize much of the following. All of this abuse has a purpose. Sometimes it is the only way the abuser can continue to abuse the divorced parent. Sometimes, it is to intimidate the child and control them. Sometimes it is just abuse to cause pain for the child. Sometimes it is to make sure the victim parent continues to be in pain and anxiety about their child during parenting time. Sometimes it is payback for the spouse divorcing them. Here is what the domestic violence behaviors against children can look like.
- The parent calls the child names over and over: crybaby, bitch, stupid.
- The parent calls the safe parent and other family members derogatory names.
- The parent punishes the child by turning out all the lights when the child is afraid of the dark.
- The parent punishes the child by putting them in a dark closet.
- The parent holds the child too tight during hugs, or pinches them, but never leaves a mark.
- The parent flips the child in the head with a finger, which leaves no mark.
- The parent deliberately ignores the child’s birthday even if they are together.
- The parent downplays holidays so the child cannot enjoy them.
- The parent promises the child things that never happen.
- The parent creates sibling animosity and triangulates them.
- The parent favors one child over others.
- The parent takes away the child’s belongings so they cannot carry them back to their primary home.
- The parent punishes the child for wanting to talk to or call their primary parent.
- The parent hangs up the phone abruptly when the child calls their primary parent.
- The parent uses the child to carry threats to the safe parent.
- The parent makes certain the child can hear their criticism of the safe parent.
- The parent hits the child with a spatula but leaves no mark.
- The parent makes a fist and threatens to hit the child and the child is so scared he wets his pants.
- The parent ignores the child when he is sick and never tells the primary parent.
- The parent ignores safety helmets and safety while swimming, biking, and skateboarding.
- The parent slaps the child.
- The parent makes the child sleep with them.
- The parent blames the child and the victim parent for everything.
- The parent mistreats a pet, throws them into the pool, euthanizes them.
- The parent has explosive outbursts over minor issues like spilling a drink.
- The parent curses and calls the child vulgar names.
The Abuse Pattern Did Not End With the Marriage or the Litigation
The domestic violence rarely ends with the marriage or the litigation. Sadly some of the abuse is now aimed at you through your child. Since the abuser no longer has access to you, they use the children. When your child comes home frightened, dysregulated or without their favorite stuffy, you then spend weekends sick with worry and unable to do a thing about it. That is not a side effect. That is the point. The abusive parent lost direct access to you when the orders were entered, and your child becomes the method to abuse you. They create all kinds of anxiety and withhold phone time, monitor the phone or grab it out of the child’s hands when they don’t like whatever they were telling the other parent.
(This article focuses on children but domestic violence rarely ends against the victim parent with the divorce either. The abuser does everything they can to make life miserable for the victim parent. They harass them over phone time, pick up and drop off, children activities, money, and any other day to day issue to create chaos and discord.)
Details matter as you make your case for court. A clear pattern displayed by a timeline with dates, times, incidents, quotes, places and witnesses will help the judge understand this pattern. When this pattern is written clearly and is entered into evidence, it becomes very near impossible to discount every single abusive event for years. It is usually overwhelming. One incident sounds like a complaint. Twenty incidents across five years is a course of conduct. The pattern is the case.
The Alec and Lydia Act Requires the Court to Consider Prior Acts of Domestic Violence
As part of that evidence, the Alec and Lydia Act makes it easier to make the case for domestic violence. Under A.R.S. § 25-403.03(C)(6), the court shall consider other acts of domestic violence against any person that tend to prove the existence of coercive control, even if those acts have been decided, predate the last decree or could have been litigated at another time or place.
That means what was done to the victim parent is considered alongside the abuse of the child.
And under A.R.S. § 25-403.03(E)(3), the court must consider whether the parent committed domestic violence with sufficient severity or frequency that the passage of time is not a mitigating factor. The age of the abuse does not by itself weaken it.
The Protections for the Victim After a Finding of Domestic Violence
Here is what a finding of domestic violence sets in motion. Because these attach to protect the victims of domestic violence, it is imperative to call the abuse of the child domestic violence.
Under A.R.S. § 25-403.03(D), a determination that a parent committed domestic violence creates a mandatory rebuttable presumption that awarding that parent legal decision-making or parenting time is contrary to your child's best interests. The same subsection provides that the court may not require you to prove that the domestic violence was severe or frequent enough to justify restricting that parent's legal decision-making or parenting time. You are no longer the one proving danger or trying to connect the dots for the court. It is all there in the Alec and Lydia Act.
The judge has to show the work. Under A.R.S. § 25-403.03(B), the court must make specific written findings on the record and explain why its choice of precautions is in your child's best interests.
A certificate is not enough. Under A.R.S. § 25-403.03(E)(5), the court may not treat a certificate of completion from a treatment program as proof of rehabilitation on its own. That parent must waive the privilege necessary to release the treatment records to the court and to the victim, show the program was relevant and proportionate to any domestic violence for which credible evidence is presented, demonstrate an understanding of how the domestic violence harmed the child and the other parent, and prove the program addressed and helped reduce any tendency to minimize or rationalize it.
If the presumption is not rebutted, the court may not grant that parent sole or joint legal decision-making, unsupervised parenting time, or supervised parenting time, and must adopt precautions that prioritize the personal safety and physical, mental and emotional well-being of the child and the other parent. Those precautions can include exchanges in a protected location, no overnight parenting time, supervision of parenting time, suspension of access to the child, a program of intervention for perpetrators of domestic violence, and a bond for your child's safe return.
Your child cannot be ordered into any therapy or counseling with the abuser. Under A.R.S. § 25-403.03(I), the court may not order a victim of domestic violence, whether the child or a parent, to join the abusive parent in any inpatient or outpatient treatment program, counseling program, or forensic assessment, whether telephonic, virtual, or in person.
Start With the Record
Before anything else, write it down. Every incident with the date. What your child said, in your child’s own words. Who else saw it or heard about it. What you did afterward. And what came before it, during your marriage, when it was aimed at you.
The whole record shows the pattern and is what the Alec and Lydia Act now requires the court to look at. And under this Act, the pattern is the case.
We have been working with domestic violence victims for over 19 years. We are here to help. You are not alone.
If domestic violence is part of your family’s story, call Best Law Firm. Tali Best Collins handles every new client consultation personally. Talk to Tali. | (480) 219-2433
