Parenting apps: the future of effective communication?
Written by Chelsea McVicker | Family team | Children and Family Law | 6th July 2023
Communicating with your ex-partner is never something that is easy after you have separated. Conversations can sometimes be tense, emotional and draining. Most people’s instinct is to cut all ties but this is often not possible if you share children with your ex. This makes communication essential but nontheless daunting for many.
Many parents find themselves in the hands of professionals when it comes to disputes about their children. Heated discussions in front of the children are never helpful and should be avoided at all costs, and therefore many parents look to use mediation, lawyer negotiations, or a Court application if all efforts to reach an agreement have been exhausted.
Whilst it’s sometimes helpful to rely on professionals to communicate on your behalf, the reality is that your need to co-parent your children extends way beyond the time your file is open with your lawyer. This makes communication essential in most cases, and over recent years, there is a growing trend of using an app to achieve this.
The Purpose of the app
Some of you might have heard of parenting apps. We have apps for most things these days, so why not in respect of dealing with the children? There are many on the market at the moment but, each has one common aim, that being to create a safe forum to allow separated parents to communicate about the needs of their children and assist with practical arrangements.
The reality of this is that all communication between separated parents and important information relating to the children will be in one place. We understand, that when emotions are high, it can be easy to accidentally forget key dates or lose track of messages exchanged. This can lead to further tension if the information is lost and one parent criticises the other, which can be upsetting for your children if they’re exposed to this. Hopefully, this is less likely to be the case if all information is in one place and easily accessible to you.
Different apps will operate slightly differently but a common feature is that of a Shared Calendar. This can usually be viewed and edited by both of you and allows you to log time spent with the children, either in accordance with a Court Order or contact arrangements reached by agreement.
Some apps will allow you to request a change in time spent with the children, for example on a special occasion. This can usually be requested via the Shared calendar, meaning less stress of having to address that directly with your ex-partner. Talking directly can be hard or impossible if the children are always present.
The majority of apps also have a message function, allowing you to exchange messages. Whilst this is very similar to communication on other well-known messaging apps, this feature allows for a platform that is focused on children. The apps tend to keep a record of all communications, not allowing them to be edited or deleted after they have been sent.
The general rule is that adopted children are treated the same as biological children when using the term ‘my children’ in a Will. However, if the child if adopted overseas and the adoption is not recognised in the UK then this rule may not apply.
What does the Court think?
Despite the fact that separated parents are often in Court because they cannot agree, the Court encourages parties to try and reach a sensible middle ground from the outset. The Court will often encourage direct communication, when appropriate and safe, and in my recent experience, the encouragement of using parenting apps is becoming increasingly common.
Before the digital world of apps, the Court would regularly order parents to communicate by way of a ‘handover book’, which got passed between the parents, often via the children. I am finding, this is becoming less popular and the Court is looking forward to the more modern use of parenting app’s to take the place of the handover book. This could be for several reasons, including:-
1. The vast majority of us own a smartphone and already rely on it for day-to-day living! This makes it easier and quicker to communicate without the need to write in a book;
2. The risk of the contact book falling into the hands of your child could be dangerous. Whilst civil communication is encouraged, the risk of a parent writing something inappropriate and this being read by a child could be huge. No parent would want to cause upset to their child but reading parents’ comments in a contact book could have that effect, particularly if the notes are not child-focused.
3. On most apps the record of messages sent between separated parents cannot be altered. Unfortunately, we are in an age where we can edit most things, including text messages, once they have been sent. Some apps allow downloads of the conversations had on the app and I believe this is likely to become an increasingly common source of evidence within Court proceedings. This will reduce the risk of one parent claiming a message presented to the Court has been edited;
4. Some Apps can actively help with the tone of communication. We are all guilty of responding in a rush or not thinking before we write and some apps have a system that will ask you to check your message before sending if they think it could be seen as confrontational. Communication via message is hard as you cannot hear someone’s tone and there is nothing worse than a message being interpreted wrongly. Some Apps will help with this and act as a ‘third party’ to review messages before they are sent.
Other things to think about
Although like most things, some apps do come at a cost. Sadly, this may be a barrier to some being able to access them but if you have found an app that you think would work for you, it may be worth contacting them to see if their fee can be waived. Some apps do run schemes for fees to be reduced for parents on low incomes.
Based on my recent experience, parenting apps are not just encouraged by the Court, they are being recommended by Court experts such as Cafcass. I believe parenting apps are here to stay and hopefully will evolve as our reliance on technology continues.
We can help you
If you think a parenting app might help you to communicate more effectively, do some research to see which one you think would work best for your situation. If you do not feel able to suggest this to your co-parent directly, please do contact our Family Team, who can offer you an appointment to discuss ways we might be able to help.
You can reach us on 01752 827030 or by emailing us at family@nash.co.uk. We’d be more than happy to have a chat with you about how we can help.
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