Co-parenting can take some time to get comfortable with after your divorce. Through marriage, you were able to check-in with your ex at any point about your child’s schedule or a plan for who will purchase new cold weather wardrobe for your child who has grown out of their clothes. But now you live in two separate homes.
Setting rules about how and how often you contact one another is important to decide as you develop a parenting plan. One way to simplify your communication plan is by using a co-parent app. There are apps created for families with children who split their time between two homes. They come with tools to keep track of your custody schedule, organize children-related documents and message your co-parent.
Collaborative scheduling and file management
Having the ability to manage a calendar on an app that both you and your co-parent access can create cohesion between two homes. This is because as parents add new events or make changes to the schedule, they’ll have the full calendar to reference at the palm of their hands.
You can even set up a way for one co-parent to approve or deny a change that the other co-parent adds to the schedule. So, say one parent was supposed to take a child to their annual physical exam, but a last-minute work meeting comes up. When they reschedule the child’s appointment, the next available date will happen when their co-parent has the kids. To be sure this change works with their co-parent, they can send a request with a note about the change to the schedule. This means you won’t have to call your co-parent and wait for them to go through their work and personal calendar before responding. Rather, the schedule coordination can be collaborative and independent all at the same time
Having the ability to keep all child-related documents in one place can help co-parents stay organized too. Instead of having to ask about where to locate your child’s insurance information or school tuition statements, you can both upload and easily view these forms. Less pestering and a higher sense of organization may prevent co-parent disagreements.
Digital messaging features
To speak directly to one another, you can use the messaging feature of a co-parent app. This can be beneficial to ex-spouses, because they are able to stay out of each other’s main text message inbox. Setting this boundary allows co-parents to move on from their break-up and keep a healthy connection with their child’s other parent all at the same time.
Plus, when parents get along, your child is more likely to build healthy parent-child relationships that help your child stay mentally strong and succeed academically. Some apps even check the tone of the message before you click send, which may encourage you to find alternative ways to deal with conflict other than badmouthing one another.