Once you get through your divorce, if you have children together, you will still have to have an ongoing parenting relationship with your ex. Negotiating schedule changes, coordinating exchanges, making big decisions about education or medical care, and staying informed about events in your child’s life are all part of the post-divorce co-parenting relationship.
All of those things are challenging on their own, but when they are paired with a high-conflict relationship, they can feel unnavigable. The good news is there are apps that can not only help you stay organized but which can significantly cut down on the level of conflict involved in your co-parenting relationship.
Co-Parenting Apps for Convenience
There are many apps available that allow parents to have a shared calendar for co-parenting. Some include other features such as file and photo sharing, messaging, expense management, shared contacts, and more. These attributes are designed to allow you to interact with the other parent efficiently. All of your information and communication can be managed through the app you choose.
If your child goes to the doctor, you can send the records through the app as well as the doctor’s contact information, so the other parent is up to speed. If you need to set up your vacation time with your child, the app allows you to request and schedule it right in the app. If you’re going to be late for a pickup, that can be handled through the app.
Apps Improve Communication
Apps not only make it easy to share information and make requests, but they also cut down on confusion and miscommunication. All the discussion you have with the other parent about custodial matters is contained and preserved within the app, and there can never be a mistake about what was agreed to. Your spouse can’t deny they agreed to switch weekends because all of your communication is recorded in the app and cannot be erased.
If there is ever a conflict about who said what or what you agreed to, the app provides clear evidence about what was discussed and decided on. Some apps allow you to forward copies of the communications directly from the app to your attorney if you need to provide a record of the communications.
Co-Parenting Apps to Try
The following co-parenting apps offer the features discussed above and can be a useful way to manage your contact with the other parent during or after the divorce:
Artificial Intelligence Can Improve Your Co-Parenting Experience
Even with the help of a co-parenting app, you may find that communications with the other parent are fraught with difficulty. If you had a high-conflict divorce or a very volatile marriage, co-parenting could be particularly challenging. While an app can help you stay organized and maintain records of your communications, it may not resolve the underlying problem: that you just cannot communicate civilly with each other. Feelings of anger and resentment frequently influence parental contact and turn simple requests into contentious back and forths that can escalate into a full-blown conflict that sends you back to court again and again.
There are apps made just for this problem. They rely on artificial intelligence (AI) which analyzes the messages you enter into the app before they are sent. These specialized apps use software to evaluate the language used - what you are saying and how you are saying it. It can detect angry, threatening, insulting, and abusive messages. It stops you from immediately sending messages that may be incendiary or negative and gives you the opportunity to rewrite or rephrase your message.
- Our Family Wizard includes this AI feature. When the app picks up on a message you’ve drafted that sounds hostile or is emotionally charged, it flags the message, tells you what it picked up, and asks you if you want to send it or make changes.
- CoParenter offers a similar AI evaluation of language in messages, but it also takes things to the next level by including free, on-demand message mediation. So, if you and the other parent cannot reach an agreement about something you are discussing in the app, you can immediately access the mediation services and get professional help resolving the conflict before it burgeons into an even bigger problem.
These services help you to reduce conflict with the other parent. Simply by taking the time to reread a message that is flagged as a potential problem, you get a chance to take a breath and rethink your word choice. Often people send messages in the heat of the moment, without a second thought.
Having AI evaluate your word choice can help you send messages that are more neutral and which reduce your overall conflict. This, in turn, helps you avoid having to return to court again and again to resolve ongoing communication problems. And by controlling the emotional tone of your conversations, you and the other parent are able to reach consensus more easily and build a calm and effective parenting partnership.
The added benefit of immediate mediation gives you on-the-spot assistance resolving disagreements before they can balloon into litigated matters, costing you time and money.
Co-parenting apps can greatly improve your co-parenting relationship by streamlining schedules and communication and reducing the conflict that is commonly inherent in these situations.