How to improve your high conflict co-parenting relationship with AI

Artificial intelligence is transforming the way we live. We are seeing changes in e-commerce, robotics, education, and even lifestyle (think “smart” thermostats and personal assistants like “Alexa”).  For divorced or separated parents, strategic use of AI can also help you manage your co-parenting relationship and in turn reduce conflict and stress.

Here are the top three ways you can improve your high conflict co-parenting relationship using AI:

1. Tone Monitoring. Effective communication between co-parents is crucial, but electronic messages can easily be misinterpreted due to the absence of non-verbal cues like body language and tone of voice. A message might be read as hostile, or a legitimate concern could escalate into a conflict if the tone is not monitored appropriately.
   

Traditionally, services that utilize I real person moderators to oversee communications have helped manage these issues in high conflict parenting relationships. While these services can help, they can also be costly and time-consuming. AI-powered tools are now available to help manage the tone of messages. For instance, OurFamilyWizard, a popular co-parenting application, features ToneMeter^TM, an exclusive tool that flags potentially negative language before a message is sent. You can also do your own tone-check by asking AI apps (e.g. Chat GBT) to review your message and reduce the likelihood of fueled conflict or misunderstandings.  Changing phrases like “you are wrong” to “I believe there has been a misunderstanding” can fundamentally impact the co-parenting relationship in a positive way.

2. Parenting Schedules. Parenting time schedules can be complex, especially when different children are on different schedules. In high conflict co-parenting relationships, honest mistakes can create unintended legal issues and tension.

AI personal assistants are becoming increasingly popular to help people manage their calendars and to-do lists, send reminders, coordinate tasks, and even create schedules. Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple all have variations of the AI “assistant” to help you manage your calendar, your kid’s calendar and all the logistics that come with it. AI can identify things like parenting time exchanges, doctor’s appointments, and soccer practices from emails or text messages and automatically add them to the calendar. Effective use of the AI technology (such as a shared calendar managed by an AI assistant) can identify scheduling conflicts, set reminders, tell you when you need to leave to be somewhere on time and reduce the opportunity for conflict over scheduling logistics.

3. Expense Reimbursements. Most parenting plans provide for the sharing of certain childcare expenses. These expenses can be easy to lose track of and when left unmanaged, many co-parents find themselves seeking enforcement in the courtroom.

Math based AI programs can be used to take a picture of a bill or receipt and automatically calculate the other parent’s percentage share. This makes shared expenses easy to track and less likely to fall through the cracks.  Couple this with automatic reminders and linked payment methods and the opportunities for conflict greatly decrease.

It is important to remember that AI programs may not keep your information confidential, so sensitive data like social security numbers and account information should be removed before using an AI chatbot that is not already vetted for security.

AI technologies can be invaluable resources for improving a high conflict co-parenting relationship, however, they cannot be used as a replacement for legal advice. For more information about family law matters contact the attorneys at Griffiths Law.

Eliza Steinberg is a Shareholder at Griffiths Law. Eliza’s practice focuses exclusively on domestic relations matters including divorce, allocation of parental rights, post-decree disputes, and child support matters.

James Nash is a Law Clerk at Griffiths Law. James assists the attorneys with domestic relations matters including divorce, allocation of parental rights, post-decree disputes, and child support matters.