"My Co-Parent Doesn’t Want to Use the App"

Using the App Is Voluntary

First things first: the app is built on voluntary participation. You can’t force anyone to use it — not by nagging, and not legally.

Find Out Why and Talk Through the Options

If your co-parent hasn’t responded, ask whether they received the invitation. Emails sometimes land in the spam folder or get lost, and it’s good to know so you can send a new one.

If your co-parent has responded but doesn’t want to use the app, ask why! Maybe you have a text thread where everything about the kids is mixed together — one you’re not happy with, but your co-parent wants to keep. Take what they say seriously. If you can have a calm, factual dialogue, you can weigh the pros and cons of the different options together. And remember to mention that joining costs your co-parent nothing: one subscription covers the whole family, so the person you invite gets a free account.

Get Started Yourself While You Wait

While you wait for your co-parent, you can start using the app on your own — it works fully with just one parent, and the changes you make are approved automatically until your co-parent joins. Each time you add information and choose to share it, your co-parent is reminded that things are waiting for them in the app. Shared photos of your child, in particular, often spark the interest to log in.

Almost everything in the app can also be used on your own or with other important adults in your child’s life — grandparents, bonus family, and others — while you wait for your co-parent to come around.

Encouragement and Other Ways In

When there’s a lot of friction in your communication and cooperation, it usually takes encouragement — in one form or another — to get a workable dialogue started.

The invitation to the Co-parenting app is one such form.

Get help from other trusted adults. Could the refusal be about the invitation coming from you? Maybe there’s someone your co-parent trusts who can raise the subject with them. If it feels safer, you can also invite another trusted adult into your chat in the app, so that someone else sees what you write to each other and no one feels forced or exposed.

Ask for your co-parent’s own suggestions for how to communicate and cooperate. If they come back with ideas, listen and genuinely consider them. Their proposal might not be your first choice, but it can be a good way to get communication started. Once things are running smoothly, you can revisit the tools you would prefer.