How to insert element as a first child?

I want to add a div as a first element using jquery on each click of a button

<div id='parent-div'>
    <!--insert element as a first child here ...-->

    <div class='child-div'>some text</div>
    <div class='child-div'>some text</div>
    <div class='child-div'>some text</div>

</div> 

Try the $.prepend() function.

Usage

$("#parent-div").prepend("<div class='child-div'>some text</div>");

Demo

var i = 0;
$(document).ready(function () {
    $('.add').on('click', function (event) {
        var html = "<div class='child-div'>some text " + i++ + "</div>";
        $("#parent-div").prepend(html);
    });
});

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

<div id="parent-div">
    <div>Hello World</div>
</div>
<input type="button" value="add" class="add" />

Extending on what @vabhatia said, this is what you want in native JavaScript (without JQuery).

ParentNode.insertBefore(<your element>, ParentNode.firstChild);

Use: $("<p>Test</p>").prependTo(".inner"); Check out the .prepend documentation on jquery.com

parentNode.insertBefore(newChild, refChild)

Inserts the node newChild as a child of parentNode before the existing child node refChild. (Returns newChild.)

If refChild is null, newChild is added at the end of the list of children. Equivalently, and more readably, use parentNode.appendChild(newChild).

parentElement.prepend(newFirstChild);

This is a new addition in (likely) ES7. It is now vanilla JS, probably due to the popularity in jQuery. It is currently available in Chrome, FF, and Opera. Transpilers should be able to handle it until it becomes available everywhere.

P.S. You can directly prepend strings

parentElement.prepend('This text!');

Links: developer.mozilla.org - Polyfill

Required here

<div class="outer">Outer Text <div class="inner"> Inner Text</div> </div>

added by

$(document).ready(function(){ $('.inner').prepend('<div class="middle">New Text Middle</div>'); });

$(".child-div div:first").before("Your div code or some text");

$('.parent-div').children(':first').before("<div class='child-div'>some text</div>");