Talking Parents

They just decided to go from $4.99 to $9.99 because they know they can. People are forced into using this app and they are taking advantage of it.

Joke site. Some legal "professionals" are essentially trying to make Internet coin by starting this joke of a site. They marketed the whole thing by sending flyers, promoting the site at legal conventions and people who are smart and educated bought their snake oil pitch. This site is biased against the male halves of a custody battle. I wish Trump would drain this sites swamp. I had everything taken from me and now gotta pay some battle axe for transcripts? This is run my people who never got asked to their high school prom. Beware, if your ex gets transcripts this site will audit them so that only the negative or derogatory things the male half said will be provided. A total biased pay site. And,... because they NEVER get back to you in a timely manner... and... BECAUSE YOU CAN NEVER GET AHOLD OF ANY VIA PHONE... you will suffer. You cannot even get a real person by phone or in person to validate the voracity of any email exchanges (which is required in my state). PLEASE... tell your attorney to tell your judge "NO"... don't use this POS site!

I have been using this for almost a year now. It's honestly nothing special, just a messaging program with read receipts. Sadly, that's where the pros seem to end.

Cons:
* Full of ads, including redirecting ads and fullscreen ads that are disruptive.
* Email notifications don't work right, either tell you a message is there when there isn't or doesn't tell you when there is one.
* Sometimes marks messages you haven't read as read by you. This happens sometimes if you are reading a mesaage on a thread and another is sent, or when you are not even logged in.
* For text notifications, you will be charged $0.05 (as of this writing). For parents who have abusive and narcissistic coparents, this can and will be abused. Plus charging for a notification when they already don't work right is bad business practices.
* Forced paywall if you don't download attachments within the tiny timeframe.
* $4.99 a month of $49.99 a year to remove ads and use the app, which has poor ratings and hardly works. This seems like exploitation, especially when the court orders you to use this program.
* For $3.99 you can buy PDF court records, something that should be free, and can be done with a Print2PDF driver. They only allow you 24 hours to download it too. So if you misplace the file, get ready to fork over more money.

Overall, with this program being forced upon parents like myself, this seems like clear exploitation to me. Its clunky and slow and full of ads. If you are given an option to use Talking Parents, one word of advice: say no!

Basically, my experience with Talking Parents has been sending messages to the father, he reads the messages and then just doesn't respond. After 24-48 hours (the time he has expressed that he needs to "think about how to respond" - because he thinks presenting himself in a better light on Talking Parents changes his derogatory behavior through text messages... it's the same thing...) is the biggest waste of time that I have come across, next to the highly recommended Guardian ad Litem. This website is perfect for parents to pretend that they are, "doing all the right things." I spend the majority of the day and evening's constantly checking for messages... that no one reads, when there is an Emergency what do you do? Go write a message on Talking Parents and hopefully someone gets it the next day. If you need to inform your coparent about ANYTHING THAT IS IMPORTANT... you're better off trying to call them (even though you know that they will refuse to communicate with you unless it's on Talking Parents...) What? How is this HELPFUL FOR TWO ESTRANGED PARENTS? Communicating through a Website has been nothing but a nightmare. I'm not even Court Ordered to communicate with only Talking Parents, but my ex husband has taken it upon himself to ONLY communicate with Talking Parents now. This Website made a somewhat decent communication process between two divorced individuals with children, into no communication, read messages with no response, frustrating every other Avenue (via text, email, calling) the other parent to say, "Read your God Damn messages on Talking Parents!"

They should change the name to: No Talking Parents, we can guarantee a platform for writing statements... but we can't guarantee anything else but that!

I honestly have no idea how this Website is actually HELPING anyone who is in the midst of a nasty divorce with children. This Website has absolutely nothing to do with the children whatsoever, it has however created a new way for "parents" to be malicious and callous because no one is checking in on their communication. Thank you Talking Parents, just another disaster to deal with on a daily basis.

Forced by courts normally in an ongoing attempt to imply one parent is an issue. Some instances, that is the case. Luckily in my situation the divorce Judge recognized my wife's facade and I ended up with full custody of one and 50/50 of another. All our verbal communication has been pleasant. My wife though, she gaslights, stonewalls and gray stones my posts. Ignoring for days or just not answering. All keywords she now uses that she learned from "support groups". I'm the husband that fought to save the marriage. I just did it the wrong way. This app further promotes the dissolution of marriages that could easily be reconciled. It further segregates families and compounds a lack of communication between relationships. This may not be applicable to everyone's situation but is so in my case. All it's done is further distant my children from their mother and assisted in causing resentment towards my ex from my teens standpoint. In short, it's all backfiring on her. Some would take delight in this, however I don't. I prefer open and free communication. Free Speech according to our rights, with the hopes of one day my ex pulls her head out of her $#*!. Any Judge in our country that makes individuals communicate through this means without just cause should also pull their head out of their $#*!. I've gotten to where I just won't use the site now unless absolutely necessary. If you're being forced in to utilizing this nightmare, keep it to yes and no replies or one or two sentences. Bare minimum. It's a sad day society has come to this. Or do like I do, have an ex girlfriend post for you. At least that way in court you can attest it wasn't you that sent the message and you can freely state who did. Just be sure if you need something to be posted be very clear and short... "I need to tell them I need this". Sont log in, don't read the replies. That way you can attest you've never been on the site. Having someone else post on your behalf can be verified by IP that instant you as evidence. Just be sure the person posting for you is trustworthy. If you do log in, use a VPN.

I would love more than anything to be able to co-parent with my ex-husband. My ex-husband is a very verbally and emotionally abusive person. I had to block his phone number and his email so he would stop harassing me. The judge in Western Washington told us to use an app that we could communicate on so we could "work together" for our daughter. My ex's attorney suggested Talking Parent. Yes, it is true that anything you write in Talking Parent can be used in court because you can not change what you've written after it is sent. You would think that would be great, however, my ex uses Talking Parent to make himself look like "dad of the year" and he twists my words around to make it look like he is the one telling the truth in the situation, which is the farthest thing from the truth. I have spent over $35,000 in court to try to protect my daughter from the abuse and neglect from her father and step-mother. My daughter has not been protected and the only thing I have to show for it is being in debt up to my eyeballs. The court ordered an anger management test for him and we even had a GAL. Both only made things worse in the situation by letting him get away with his behavior and wrong doings. The court did nothing to protect my daughter and now she is living with him. My ex-husband still verbally abuses and harasses me on this Talking Parent site and when I sent a concern on the "contact us" on the app nothing is done about it. Here was there response that was sent back to me.
"Unfortunately, we can not force parents to use our service in a constructive, positive manner or to abide by a court order. We recommend that you attempt to address any specific concerns about messages that the other parent is sending using Talking Parents; this provides documentation of your attempts to be cooperative and civilly resolve issues.

However, if you think the other parent may be acting in violation of a court order, or you would like to find out what support may be available through the legal system, then we recommend you contact an attorney, or the court itself."

Sincerely,

Damien
User Support Representative, Talking Parents

I feel the judge, the GAL, the anger management evaluator, and the Talking Parent site has done nothing to protect my daughter and my family. I do not know if there is a better parent communication app for parents to work with but I most certainly would not recommend this site to anyone who wants to protect their child(ren). Even if money was not an issue the court continues turn a blind eye and considers anything I use in court as "hear say". This is all I get whether I have an attorney or not.