files/en-us/web/api/document/children/index.md
{{ APIRef("DOM") }}
The read-only children property returns a live {{domxref("HTMLCollection")}}
which contains all of the child {{domxref("Element", "elements")}} of the document upon which it was called.
For HTML documents, this is usually only the root <html> element.
See {{domxref("Element.children")}} for child elements of specific HTML elements within the document.
An {{ domxref("HTMLCollection") }} which is a live, ordered collection of the DOM elements which are children of the current document. You can access the individual child nodes in the collection by using either the {{domxref("HTMLCollection.item()", "item()")}} method on the collection, or by using JavaScript array-style notation.
If the document has no element children, then children is an empty list with a
length of 0.
document.children;
// HTMLCollection [<html>]
// Usually only contains the root <html> element, the document's only direct child
See {{domxref("Element.children")}} for child elements of specific HTML elements within the document.
{{Specifications}}
{{Compat}}