This article first appeared in Digital Edge, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on July 26, 2021 - August 1, 2021

Parenting is hard at the best of times. When you are divorced or separated, there is no magic formula to help children, especially minors, adjust to the fallout.

Getting along with an ex-spouse after the acrimony of divorce is difficult and unpleasant but there are steps that parents can take to help their children cope with the separation and make parenting easier in its aftermath.

Thanks to co-parenting apps, ex-spouses can avoid the stress of face-to-face interactions, helping them to manage their relationship and share responsibilities as parents amicably.

The apps enable them to coordinate their schedules or even split pick-up and drop-off duties during working days. Users can also send each other voice notes, files on expenses or information on their children’s upcoming activities.

However, there are downsides to relying solely on technology, as poor communication can aggravate an already strained relationship.

Created by a divorced couple, OurFamilyWizard was designed with the intention of keeping communication between co-parents as harmonious as possible. Each user has his or her own account, and can add multiple third party, child and professional accounts as they require at no extra cost, for example, for grandparents, mediators and therapists. The app comes with shared parenting time calendars, expense and payment tracking, family data storage, secure messaging, location tagging and more. There is even an optional add-on —ToneMeter — which acts like an “emotional spell check” to pick up on negative tones, and suggest alternatives to avoid a potential argument.

With this, co-parents, stepparents, family members, childcare providers, professionals and other third parties — regardless of whether or not they use the app — can communicate and share information easily from any mobile device.

Priorities and obligations are organised into three different categories, making it easier for users and the people in their circle to communicate, manage tasks, share appointments and events, track expenses, and send and receive money for reimbursement obligations — all for free.

Parents can share important child-related information such as allergies, special medications, alternative childcare options and school-related information with their co-parent or other third parties. The AppClose Solo feature allows users to send messages on child-related information with non-AppClose users. 

Designed by the Human Improvement Project — a Colorado non-profit research institution — The Happy Child provides users with cutting-edge research and tips that will help parents raise a happy, well-adjusted child.

Years of ground-breaking research and findings have been curated into an easy-to-use app for free, with no in-app-purchases.

The app provides daily lessons that will help users manage parental information overload by giving them science-based ways to increase the long-term happiness of their child. These include short, easy-to-understand lessons that can be implemented immediately to improve family life no matter what the age of the children.

Cozi was not specifically created with co-parents in mind, but it is a straightforward app that allows users to create shared calendars, shopping lists, to-do lists and meal plans. The free basic programme comes with tools like shared calendar, reminders, grocery list and recipe box. A whole family shares one account that everyone can access using their own email address and the shared family password. Cozi also offers an optional ad-free premium subscription called Cozi Gold, which gives users additional features like Birthday Tracker, more reminders, mobile month view and change notifications.

Conceived for parents who are going through a divorce or trying to reach an amicable agreement with regards to their parenting decisions, Amicable simplifies the decision-making process by letting users create parenting goals post-separation, as well as document budgets and assets.

The app features options such as expert support, on top of tools such as a shared co-parenting calendar, shared goals, secure messaging and co-parenting advice.

If you just need a simple tool to keep track of and sync all of your child’s important events and appointments with your co-parent, there is always the ubiquitous Google calendar. It already comes pre-installed on Android devices, is free and is pretty straightforward to use.

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