Tension and bad blood between couples after separation or divorce are common and understandable. However, these conditions make for less-than-optimal parenting.

If and when two previous partners commit to actively raising healthy, well-adjusted children, they’ll need teamwork to make the dream work. There’s no getting around the need to interact with one another and to do it well.

Luckily, technology has made collaborating easier for co-parents. Apps for divorced parents can help with everything from scheduling custody switch-overs to exchanging child support payments.

Wouldn’t it be nice to avoid potentially quarrelsome face-to-face meetings or phone calls? The days of playing phone tag or keeping up with back-and-forth text messages are over. Now, one or both parents can easily keep track of everything within an app.

What to Look For in a Co-parenting App

There are many great apps for divorced families, each with unique features catering to different requirements. Depending on your co-parent’s situation and communication abilities, you may need more than one. Below are some ideas of what you can achieve with a co-parenting app and what qualities to look for.

Financial Features

The most common demand from separated parents is something that helps them request, pay, or track money exchanges, like child support payments. However, knowing how to ask for money can be a pain point for divorced parents. And all too often, money owed and money promised can be forgotten.

Look for an app that can help you securely and swiftly pay child support but also allows you to tactfully request payment on unforeseen expenses, like doctor bills. You can easily look back to see what you paid and what you or your co-parent still owe. Create or snap pictures of charges to politely request payment without heated discussions.

Communication Components

Communication is the backbone of successful co-parenting. Unity between co-parents is often tricky when emotions run high and feelings are hurt after a divorce or separation, though.

Parenting and divorce experts recommend keeping your communications brief and cordial, strictly about the children, and in written form (at least in the beginning stages, post-divorce). Plenty of co-parenting apps offer these capabilities. Some even have a tone-tracker that will recommend rewriting charged language or sentences that the reader could negatively misinterpret.

Organizational Outlook

Even the most organized co-parents with the best communication skills can still find scheduling difficult between two households. You have your busy schedule; your co-parent has theirs. Mix in your child’s ever-growing itinerary. Add in more family members and children from blending families and starting new ones. After a while, it’s easy to see why co-parents desperately need a schedule tracker.

You and your co-parent can find an app that lets you see each other’s schedules, keep track of custody changes, and get reminders of important events. There are even apps for single-sided use when a co-parent is less than cooperative. You and your legal counsel council can utilize it at the very least.

Indispensable Data

Need to store sensitive information in one easily accessible place? There’s a co-parenting app for that.

You and your co-parent can share access to your child’s most pertinent medical or identification information more securely. Easily access data such as school information, medical history, or insurance and social security numbers when you need it. No more waiting on a return text or phone call when filling out registration paperwork.

Single Parent Use

Check out apps that are still advantageous and valuable even when the co-parent refuses to rely on them. Some apps on the market still prove helpful and can help keep extended family members in the loop with single-parent use. Financial and custody-time apps provide valuable information to your legal counsel despite your co-parent being uninvolved.

Most apps charge a fee but are worth every penny and more. Many offer a free trial run, so you can always try before you buy to see if a particular provider offers what you need.

Co-parenting Success Starts With You

Technology and apps are making co-parenting so much easier. Share information and schedule activities while adhering to the communication advice of the pros, keeping it: cordial, brief, written down, and child-centered.

However, there are certain aspects of co-parenting that even the best apps can’t help you with. No app can make you or your co-parent more flexible, tolerant, or diplomatic. Furthermore, they cannot determine or implement your parenting or custody agreement for you. You have to be willing to do your part.

Begin establishing peaceful co-parenting even if your ex doesn’t reciprocate immediately. Strong and stable communication between you is the best way to co-parent successfully. Keeping communications civil and having information organized in one place so both parents can access everything (financial expenses, medical records, calendars, messages, and journals) are great app features for any parent.

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After a couple separates or divorces, tension, and hostility are typical and natural. But under these circumstances, parenthood is less than ideal. Fortunately, technology has made it simpler for co-parents to work together. With the use of an app, one or both parents can simply maintain all accounts on everything.

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