Communication is important to any healthy relationship, and that includes co-parenting. It’ll help you stay organized and give your kids the best chance for a healthy relationship with both of you. So, it only makes sense that most of your communication is done through your phone. But, if like a lot of other people, you’d rather compartmentalize this particular relationship, and not have it mix in with your other social communication, you can download apps into your phone that will help with co-parenting.
Juggling school, socializing, and living situations are difficult, and that’s not even mentioning your own life, but you don’t have to do it alone. There are a lot of apps on the internet designed to help the two of you communicate and stay organized.
In this list, we’ll cover everything from organizing events to sorting out finances. There is something for every situation, and in a few cases, apps that cover everything. You’re sure to see life getting a little easier as time goes on.
Google Calendar
Google Calendar is the most popular calendar you can download, which is enough of a sell in itself. It means your co-parent is likely to have it already downloaded in their phone, avoiding one more mini fight. But you might not be aware of the full capabilities of the app.
Having been designed to aid in businesses and reach remote workers, Google Calendar allows many people to view and edit the calendar. Events from your Gmail account can quickly be added so that your co-parent will be able to see immediately when the Christmas Nativity play is, and whether it clashes with anything else.
You will gain a new level of organization as you layer your calendars to see any clashes and manage all those football games, dance recitals, grandparent visits, and everything else you can think of.
List Ease
Kids are expensive. It’s one of the main reasons new parents are getting older and older. And when you share custody, it’s likely that the balance of who is paying is off at least a little. You can minimize that by downloading a shared shopping list. Although a lot of them are created for roommates or families to quickly say “We’ve run out of milk” while they’re out, they can also be useful to co-parents.
You can add items that should be split, like school trip payments or extra piano lessons, and keep track of what is owed and what is handled, ensuring that everything is covered.
The Cozi Family Organizer is a great tool for shopping lists, notifying members with the app when you have added items to the list, and supporting up to 12 family members. Plus, you can simply use it at home to plan out your meals and the app will add the ingredients you need to a separate list.
Venmo
Asking for money is awkward at the best of times, but if you are co-parenting, making it as simple as possible can only help. That’s where Venmo comes in.
Venmo has taken off as the easiest way for small businesses and online influencers to get paid. But it was made to make payments between friends and family members easy and safe.
Again, it is one of the most popular apps, therefore it is likely your co-parent might already be using it. Plus, the app comes with a chatroom between you and your partner, allowing for conversations on what needs paid and how much. And if you are using a debit card or a bank account, there will be no fees.
Make things even easier by downloading Onward. Onward works with Venmo to allow you to share future or past expenses with a co-parent, so that payments stay simple, even when splitting them over a child. There will be a paper trail to reference if you need it and you can upload receipt files to prove that you have paid. Keep track of who owes what at any given time, avoiding any awkward chats, nagging or conflict. You will be notified the second someone pays for an expense, so you can get on with whatever needs money to be done, like buying sports supplies or paying for school trips.
It will also be easier to follow your own expenses. You will gain reports of your spending, which can be categorized by month or child, and will be displayed clearly so that you can understand how much you are spending. Plus, it can all be exported to an Excel spreadsheet each month for use in court if it comes to that.
FamiSafe
Keeping track of your kids is difficult at the best of times. Ever been in the house with them and wondered why the house is so quiet? Someone’s up to something. And kids get around. There is school, after-school activities, socializing, visiting, and more to keep a track of. In that time, and with bad communication, wires can get crossed, and you might get a call from a football coach wondering why your kid is still sitting on the field waiting for a car – or they could have started to walk.
Catching up with them has been given a good upgrade with the advancements in tech. If you’ve reached the point where you have given your child a phone, you can track where they are at all times. Or you can keep an eye on your co-parent’s phone while they have your children.
The best option here is FamiSafe. Control screen time, detect inappropriate content, and crucially, track real-time location with FamiSafe. Make sure stranger danger isn’t a problem, make sure they are in fact showing up to school and create safe “Geofences” around areas like home or school to be notified if they wander away from the area.
OurFamilyWizard
And then there is the app that does it all. Scheduling, filing, communication is all handled with ease with the OurFamilyWizard. Any challenges that you can think of in co-parenting will quickly be solved with the OurFamilyWizard app.
You will have a shared calendar with a swap request so that asking to change things around is easy and is color-coded to reflect who is responsible for the child on each day. There is a chat option that doesn’t allow for deleting or editing so that there is a record of everything said. And an expense log allows you to track expenses and attach receipt files to prove they have been paid.
You can sync your co-parents, children, and any other relevant family members like grandparents and aunts, and uncles, but what sets OurFamily Wizard aside is its appreciation of the legal aspect of co-parenting. Practitioners can also be added to the app so that they are available to see updates and settle disputes via the app. Lawyers, mediators, and family law professionals use the app to manage client relationships.
The main perk of the app though is that it is court-approved since 2001, which means, if things go sour, you will have documents that you can present in court to plead your case. Your documents will also be safe and secure within the app, with the best security keeping things private.
If you are looking for more information on these top co-parenting apps, or want to see any others that are available, this list of the 13 best apps is also of great use.