Co-Parenting Technology - What are the benefits and best apps available

A primary focus of my role as an attorney who handles child custody issues is to get parents to make the best decisions for their kids.

Typically, parents and guardians (not the judges or lawyers) are the ones in the best position to know what that is. Whether they are going through an initial custody case, like in a divorce or paternity action, or if they are seasoned litigants who can’t seem to stay out of court — getting parents on the same page can be a monumental accomplishment especially when you are dealing with different personalities, preferences, and parenting styles. Obviously, if parents and guardians were good at this, they wouldn’t seeking assistance in court.

So, why not consider using an app to better handle the challenges of co-parenting instead of using them to bash the other parent. Here are some options we typically encourage our clients consider.

AppClose – overall best choice

AppClose is the overall best choice because it offers a majority of the features needed to address the most common co-parenting disputes and it is FREE!. It offers a way to keep track of messages and shows you the latest when you open the app. It offers a hared calendar which provides schedule templates, with descriptions like “Alternating weeks” and place to include an explanation of how that schedule is to be followed, i.e. pickup drop changes or giving a parent an option to exercise visitation if the other parent needs someone to care for the child. Also, parents apply separate schedules to one or more children, notify other family members, request a parenting time trade or drop off/pick up change in the app and create reminders. It offers a way track expenses and request reimbursements. It also offers a way to share important child-related information (i.e. medical, child care providers, etc.)

This app easy to navigate and fairly intuitive after getting accustomed to it. This would be the best alternative to the subscription services mentioned above. This app also offers a separate side for attorneys to communicate with clients and offer an option to export information if needed.

Our Family Wizard

Our Family Wizard is one of the more well known co-parenting apps and has the most robust set of features of the apps listed. Our Family Wizard offers a way for co-parents to message one other, share calendars, track expenses puts all communications and information about a child in a central location for the parents. It also, uniquely offers, a “tone-meter” which provides an “emotional spell-check” for parents messages. The “tone-meter” is an ad-on, but it seems like a good idea for parents who tend to get heated over email and text.

The biggest downside of this program is that it is not cheap.. A year subscription currently runs each parent $99.00., but there are discounts for military members and other qualified low income parents.

Fayr

Fayr is another popular co-parenting apps and offers a very similar set of features to Our Family Wizard. This app appears to uniquely offer a multi-year subscription plan that would make it less expensive than other plans listed. The application is very nicely designed and walks you through the setup fairly easily. It also has an option to engage with third parties such as attorneys, guardian ad litems, extended family, etc.

2houses

2houses offers a majority of the features of Our Family Wizard and is slightly less expensive. It offers a free 14-day trial and the pricing for a family is $9.99/month when paid for a full year. So, this option would be slightly less expensive than Our Family Wizard, but the parties will have to agree on how to divide that costs. The application is very user friendly, organized, and intuitive. It offers a way for co=parents to manage their schedule, expenses (and percentage of costs/payments for each), and the children’s medical information. It also sends out emails with parenting tips and help with using the app.. It appears to lack the options to engage third parties offered in the other applications listed.

SharedCare

SharedCare is a good option for parents and families co-parenting outside of the U.S. This app offers a shared calendar, location for basic health information, recording of expenses, and shared messages. This app offers a report function that will send an expense report to an email with one click. While this app is not a bad option, especially for families co-parenting outside of the U.S because it is designed to be used in a number of different countries, some of the terminology might be confusing and it doesn’t seem intuitive in some areas.