Online Co-Parenting: Court-Mandated Programs Make Shared Custody Easier

For District of Columbia mother Kelly Collis, the emails between her and her ex about co-parenting had reached a boiling point.

The back-and-forth was "starting to get nasty and it was a she-said-he-said thing," Collis, a local radio host, told reporter Angie Goff in an interview with Washington D.C.'s NBC4 on Tuesday.

In order to quell the conflict, a judge ordered Collins and her ex-husband to use co-parenting software online that was created to ease tensions between acrimonious exes. And they're not the the only ones; according to Katy Erly, a divorce mediator who spoke with NBC4, courts in at least 44 states and the District of Columbia have ordered spouses to use such programs.

But are they effective? Watch the video above to find out, and let us know what you think in the comments.

Comments

[traciwhitney]

11:30 AM on 03/26/2012

There is also a new website called TwoHappyHomes.com. It's a free resource for coparents, with a shared calendar, expense tracking, and more. Membership is free, check it out!

[Matthew Wilson]

06:22 PM on 03/01/2012

It's been my observation that it's helpful for parents to have information in one common area where they both can access it... but if one or both are writing combative emails back and forth this will just carry over into how they use the program.