Parenting Tools for Co-Parent Communication

For parents who have become unable to talk without conflict, to the point where communication is no longer tolerable or productive, there are some popular solutions available online. 

Documenting conversations through email can keep everyone civil and honest. When the email chain is secure, and cannot be manipulated to cover up promises made or things said in the heat of the moment, it provides a baseline.  At the most basic level, that is how these solutions function.  However, this is only a beginning, and great sophistication is possible.  I review three of these online products below.

Written communications about parenting that put everything about parenting in one place can provide a record of who saw the children when; what expenses were made; who said they would show up, and who did not show. Indeed everything that will be of interest to a court can be put in one place, should anyone think of going to court again.

There are two online products that I hear about over and over again in my work.  Talkingparents.com is cost free, and promises to be spam free, although it features a lawyer referral service, and so has some commercial element to it.  Our Family Wizard is offered for an annual fee, but it is much more sophisticated in what it offers, so there is additional value included for the fee.  Civil communicator is relatively new, and holds promise for especially high conflict couples.

Talking Parents

The fact that it is free makes Talking Parents.com very popular.  It sells itself as a replacement for email, text and all other electronic communications between co-parents.  When used as the exclusive means of communication, it yields a secure, reliable, complete and spam free record.  At a basic level, it does what I have just described above on this page.  

Our Family Wizard

For a family wanting more organization and sophistication, Our Family Wizard takes things to a whole different level.  Beyond electronic communications, this system offers calendaring, expense logs, and a document repository for things such as court documents, parenting plans, and children’s health or other records.  You can even give a child partial access to the account, such as a calendar that shows the schedule of parenting time, extracurricular activities, doctor visits etc.  Our Family Wizard is not free, but it may pay for itself if it keeps a family out of court.
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Civil Communicator

For especially high conflict couples, Civil Communicator provides active feedback and filtering of communications between the parties.  When a message is sent it is reviewed for sticking to a single topic, and not drifting off into insult and tangential comments.  Civil Communicator also has many of the features of Our Family Wizard, such as a document library.
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Custody and Communication Made Easy. - The OurFamilyWizard® website
Co-parenting and shared/joint child custody management for divorced or unmarried parents. Parenting time, visitation schedules, activities, expenses, messaging, journals and more.