Frequently asked questions

Our mission is to help you with your divorce and co-parenting relationship. We provide you with professional mediators (who would typically cost hundreds of dollars an hour) that help you resolve disputes with your coParent.  We make these services available at a drastically more affordable price point to help more families. Each and every month we give you unlimited access to these professionals whenever you need it. 

So what can you ask our mediators in a one-on-one session or a mediation session with your co-parent? Here are just a few of the topics we’ve addressed with users:

• Explaining ‘First right of refusal’ in parenting plans 
• Saving for the child’s college tuition
• International Travel plans and taking the child out of the country
• The child’s birthday party planning and logistics
• 3rd Party Contact
• Choosing Caregivers
• Disagreements over Haircuts
• Planning Vacations
• Exchanging and changing Holiday Schedules
• Choosing which school to send the kids to 
• When should kids start dating and what are the rules
• Should you give the child an allowance and how much
• Addressing dietary and nutrition needs of the child
• How much screen time a child should have
• What media content a child should be exposed to
• How to balance religion between two homes
• Talking about medication changes for the child
• Exposure to tobacco and alcohol in the home
• Exposure and access to drugs inside and outside the home
• How to discipline the child 
• Addressing adolescent changes 
• Should the child go to camp  
• Tattoos/Piercings for older children
• Emotional or physical well being of a child
• What sports and activities the child should do
• Extra-curricular activities 
• Pick up & Drop off routines and adjustments
• Negotiating a curfew in both homes
• What religion should the child practice

… And more!

coParenter Mediators, made up of retired family law judges and professional mediators with clinical graduate degrees, are ready to help our users sort through everyday issues to help them create parenting agreements that work. Through one-on-one coaching and multi-party mediation, our pros get parents on the same page so they can quickly, easily, and legally solve parenting problems.

It’s very common for co-parents to struggle with communication. They often find it difficult to reach an agreement without emotions flaring up, especially in the early stages of separation and divorce. Our mediators understand what you’re going through and how important the issues are to parents like you. Our team has dealt with almost every parenting issue you can imagine and are equipped to help you and your co-parent reach an agreement you can both live with.

Parents want what’s best for their child, but sometimes emotions or lack of trust make coming to an agreement a real challenge. coParenter’s team of mediators use our unique platform and mediation model to help parents communicate better, work through decisions, and make child-centric parenting agreements.

How to get the most out of your one-on-one coaching session?

One-on-one coaching is more than just a mediator being there to listen to you when you need to vent. They point out alternative solutions and communication models so you can actually take charge of those things you personally have control over. Coaching may help you better articulate your position as we work on the way you make a request or react to any given action of your co-parent.  A coaching session can walk you through different scenarios while reframing the issues that raise the biggest concerns. Maybe you feel like your coParent doesn’t listen to you or deliberately undermines you in front of your kids. Coaching you through a series of positive and assertive messaging practices will help you learn how to communicate and be firm, without being disrespectful. We love seeing how our users are able to transform their relationships, using positive communication models to generate great agreements for their kids.

No matter how big or small you perceive your conflict or inability to communicate and resolve issues, coParenter Mediators are skilled, trained and capable professionals that will help you see the problem through a new lens while giving you real tools and how-tos for more effective co-parenting.

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Research shows that successful coParenting is a leading factor in helping children thrive, especially in cases of separation or divorce. Studies show that when parents commit to coParenting, they put their children’s needs first, ensuring that kids feel secure, enjoy consistency, see diplomacy between parents and most importantly, have a model of behavior to follow.

Yes, by registering through the court, your lawyer or another professional, they will have access to a third party view of your messaging, check-ins and agreements. You can also add your lawyer, therapist, etc to YourTeam and they will have access that way as well.

No, your kids cannot access your account so long as you keep your password secure. coParenter accounts can only be accessed by the username, password and touch ID you set up. It is your responsibility to use TouchID if you have it on your device and to keep your access credentials secure.

coParenting is a parenting approach that stresses communication and alignment between the parents. coParenting can be an effective parenting style regardless of marital status. However, when parents are not in a marriage, cohabitation, or romantic relationship with one another, coParenting can be the most effective approach to raising their children. Generally, coParents seek to maintain consistency for the kids, regardless of which house the children may be at. Common rules around diet, bedtimes, expectations around school, etc are agreed to by the coParents and put into practice at their homes. At its best, coParenting is an opportunity for children of divorce to have parenting input with both parents and has been proven to lead to better psychological and behavioral adjustment, and enhanced academic performance.

Any communication between you and your coParent may be admissible in court. Check-in history may also be admissible. However, any communication between you and a coParenting Professional is deemed to be confidential and inadmissible.

While we are not a non-profit, coParenter is a social venture and we measure success by the social impact of the organization. Our goal is to remove divorce from the list of adverse childhood experiences. We are seeking to empower parents, disrupt the cycle of conflict brought on by separation and divorce, improve child well-being and make the world a better place.

coParenter can help you and your coParent make better decisions for your kids by offering management, accountability, communication, and coaching tools that not only help manage your day to day involvement with your child(ren), but also help resolve any coParenting conflicts you may have with your coParent. Using the coParenter platform you can be directly connected with a coParenter Professional to help resolve disputes on demand. This can help you save money, stay out of court and make child-centric decisions.

To the fullest extent possible based on legal statute and our terms of services, all communication between you and a coParenter Professional is confidential and not subject to admission as evidence. Please review our Terms of Services for specific details.

coParenter can be downloaded from the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store for residents of the United States and Canada. We will be doing Spanish and French versions of the tool and opening up other geographies in the future.

Parallel parenting indicates that the parents may not be aligned with how they raise their children and so the kids’ experience is different when they are with each parent. Parallel parenting can be beneficial in high-conflict families where limited contact may be helpful and safer. This often indicates that parents remain disengaged from one another, separately deciding the logistics of routine and day-to-day parenting. Parallel parenting may include different rules and expectations at each parent’s home but the child is able to have both parents in their lives.

Yes, you can change or update your regular parenting schedule. For a long-term change, tap on PLAN and then coParenting Schedule to modify your Weekly / bi-weekly Schedule. To temporarily modify your existing plan, submit your new request through the REQUEST button in the app. This is useful for swapping weekends or similar short-term changes to your parenting schedule.

There is no way to hire a coParenting Professional directly within the application. However, if you find a Professional you do want to establish a formal relationship with outside of coParenter, we encourage you to do so. coParenter seeks to help parents to find alternatives to unnecessary litigation when dealing with everyday coParenting issues. For that reason, we support mediators, coParenting planners, coordinators, special masters and other coParenting professionals who help you to resolve disputes without unnecessary litigation.

There is no need to schedule an appointment with a coach/mediator as coParenter provides help on-demand. Simply click on Mediation, answer a few questions from our chatbot, and you will receive a notification once a coach/mediator has opened the communication channel to start working on your issue.

coParenter costs either $12.99 a month or $119.99 a year. Both of these include unlimited access to our coaches/mediators via the Mediation Tab for on-demand coaching, help resolving a dispute between you and your coParent, and even assistance drafting a Parenting Plan. We also want to give you an opportunity to try it before you buy so we are offering a free 30-day trial (this only includes 2 Mediation sessions). More info on the pricing plans can be found here.

However, at the end of day coParenter saves you and your coParenter money by helping you resolve conflict with an on-demand mediator, instead of hiring attorneys and taking those issues to court. The average attorney costs $250 an hour and the average divorce costs $30,000.

Most jurisdictions will allow parents to make agreements outside of court that later become enforceable orders. Check with your local jurisdiction regarding their rules for filing agreements, parenting plans, and holiday plans. If you do not have an existing Parenting Plan, you can work with one of our coaches/mediators to set-up an appropriate custody/coParenting time schedule with your coParent. 

coParenter saves you and your coParent money by helping you resolve conflict with an on-demand coParenter Professional, instead of hiring attorneys and taking those issues to court.

All coaches/mediators are fully licensed or certified in their respective fields and are typically family law attorneys, therapists, social workers or retired bench officers with strong conflict resolution backgrounds, certifications, and training. In addition to their professional qualifications and experience, our coParenting professionals are overseen by our co-founder Hon. Sherrill A. Ellsworth (ret.) ensuring they have the proper guidance to resolve coParenting issues on this platform.

While it is not necessary for both parents to join coParenter, the platform works best when both parents subscribe. If you’re coParent is unwilling to join, or you’d prefer not to have them on the platform, we have SoloMode that allows you to communicate with your coParent via SMS. The subscribing parent can maintain an organized, cohesive and secure record of all communication, attempts to resolve issues and agreements reached. Showing that you have made a good faith effort to resolve conflict is crucial if you do end up in court- especially when arguing over attorney fees. If one parent refuses to use coParenter after a Judge has made an order to do so, they may be held in contempt. Regardless of any potential for court, coParenter is a valuable tool to assist you in making the best decisions for your children.

We use biometric (fingerprint) access if your device supports it. We store your password encrypted in our database to ensure protection in case of any sort of intrusion. We use industry best practices for our infrastructure to help ensure your privacy is protected.

We don’t share your information with your coParent even if you are using SoloMode. Even when messaging via the app, the phone number that your coParent sees via the text message is a coParenter phone number.

We also do not share location information. The only location information that is exchanged between coParents is when you check-in for pickups and dropoffs. We use non-trackable location verification from your phone to allow you to check-in once you have arrived and a notification of your arrival will be sent to your coParent.

No, your personal information (for example, your phone number, email, location) is never shown to your coParent.  Anything you input about yourself is not able to be seen by your coParent.  The only information that is shared is information about your children and you are not required to input or share any information other than the child’s name.

coParenter is the first app built on the Intelligent Dispute Resolution (IDR) platform and was specifically designed for separating, divorced and never-married parents.  A first-of-its-kind, coParenter helps parents manage, organize and document critical co-parenting decisions, including custody & visitation schedules, child support payments and more. Blending the latest in computer intelligence with human assistance, coParents can now predict and prevent conflict and access live, on-demand mediators to resolve disputes should they occur. The net result is parents can stay focused on their kids and stay out of court, saving time and money.