Kevin Dorsey Shares How To Improve Co-Parenting Communication – Even With Difficult People

Welcome to the D shift podcast, where we provide inspiration, motivation and education to help you transition from the challenges of divorce to discover the freedom and ability to live life on your own terms. Are you ready? Let's get the shift started. Hello, and welcome to an episode of the D shift that's going to be a little bit unique and original compared to what we've done in the past. So today, I actually have a representative from our family wizard. This is Kevin Dorsey, he is the manager of professional relationships for our family wizard. This is a phenomenal tool for parents going through separation or divorce. And, and whether you're married parents or never married parents, it really doesn't matter. It's just a super effective tool, I get so many people asking about how to have these kinds of conversations, especially if you don't necessarily want to do face to face interactions with the other parent. And Kevin is here to share all the information about our family wizard, which I have literally been recommending to clients for a couple of decades. So this is a very proven system. So Kevin, welcome. And thank you.

Thank you so much for having me, I'm happy to be here. And I'm really excited to talk about our family wizard. For people who are new to our family wizard. I describe it as a place to communicate, it's an app for divorced and separated parents. So we're specifically talking about families who are going through divorces and separations, you would use our app on your phone. And it's a website. But most people are using it as an app to communicate. And you would be doing this in lieu of email, and text and voice calls. So what it does, it gives you a suite of tools to communicate. So your custody scheduling, for parenting time for all of your messages, your expenses when you need to be reimbursed when you want to send money of your family information. So it gives you a suite of tools to help you co parent.

And I like I say, even if you have a good co parenting relationship where the conversation is flowing? Well, this is a central place where let's say two weeks from now, you know that you want to take the kids for a special event, you can schedule that on the calendar, and that way the other parent sees it's on the calendar. And I believe that kids can also access certain parts of the calendar. Is that Is that correct? Kevin?

Yes. So how it works, each parent pays for an account, our base price is very reasonable, it's $99 per year. So that gets each parent pays 99 gets them in the site. And then with that, they get free accounts for step parents, grandma, grandpa and children, those third party accounts and child accounts, they do see a limited version of the site. So they won't see the back and forth between the parents. They'll see the calendar, and they'll see any messages that were sent to them.

Great. And I want I want to highlight this $99 a year. That's all that the base and even the even the upper level is not much more that gives you like, everything that you could possibly want. That's still only just a little over $100 a year, isn't it?

Yeah, so our middle package, I believe it's called Essentials, it's 144. Now, but what you get with that, you get tone meter. So while you're typing your message, you're getting feedback on your tone. So this is kind of cool, people get a kick out of it. It's like an emotional spellcheck. So if you're struggling with your tone, how your messages are perceived by other people, or maybe your co parents struggles with their tone, people will have tone meter turned on. So while they're typing their message, they get feedback on the actual tone. So if you say don't be late, as usual, it'll say that's aggressive. And the ideas, it gives you a chance to rephrase it before sending it you can say, please be on time, instead of Don't be late, as usual. And so that's one thing you get with essentials. And then also the ability to link your checking accounts up and send money through the site. So people who have struggled with Venmo, or PayPal, or cash or checks if that's been an issue, you can send the money through our site. So it's all in one place. You can see when the money leaves an account when it goes to the other parents and it gives you everything from start to finish with. If you're paying for school lunches for reimbursement for a doctor's appointment or dentists. You can see that all within our family wizard and it's summarized and it gives you the peace of mind that the money has been sent and received.

Yeah, and that is a huge component to helping reduce conflict because, you know, one parent can't say well, like it's in the mail like that, you know, these days, it's in the mail or it you know, I sent it through my ex account. out. There's no point in doing that when you can have it all in one place. And then there's, there's no question because if you are sending to me, I can go in and see that you've sent and if I haven't received it, then I know it's on my banks and and I can contact them and figure out what's going on. So this is, I don't know how to express how how much this helps reduce conflict. So that's why I'm so excited about it. So. And I love this idea of tone meter. Because a lot of people that use this are people that are dealing with high conflict, post divorce issues to deal with co parenting, so

yeah, a lot of people will say, you know, why can't we just communicate through text or email? What we see is people, let's say you send me a text, Marty. And then I bring it to my attorney, I might delete a text on my phone, that makes me look better. So I remember the part where maybe I was the instigator. And then I showed it to my attorney and say, hey, look what she said. And because I have the ability to delete an iPhone, or Android, it's just the authentication of what's actually happen. When was it sent. So in our family wizard, you can't delete anything after it's sent. And there's read receipts on everything. So if Marty sends me a message, I open it, it's going to date and timestamp when I opened it, and we're both going to see that. So I can't go back and say, Well, I never got that message in time about the pickup, I will be able to see if I saw it or not. So it's about kind of leveling the playing field, making things more transparent. And then giving you the tools you need to co parent because people will say, you know, why can't I just use Outlook calendar for scheduling. Our calendar is specifically designed for co parenting. So we have the templates for, you know, if you're going to do every other week, every other weekend, you know, in Texas, you have the standard possession orders, we've got a template for that, we give you the tools for the specific situation you're in, rather than trying to use, you know, Outlook or Google calendars that aren't designed for this. It really sets you up for success.

Well, and it's easy. I mean, I use Google and Outlook with my business. And it's really easy to have multiple calendars running and have something that you've missed connecting. And so I'm entering it on one calendar, and it's not transferring to the other calendar, or I, you know, inadvertently hit a wrong date and enter it in. And this just eliminates all of those human type errors that can occur when you're using multiple calendar systems.

Yep, we've got complex schedules. Now kids are busier than ever, with sports and events and different clubs they're in. So what's nice about our calendar, it's color coordinated. So whoever's got the overnight each parents assigned a color, it shows that on the calendar, so it's easy on the eyes, at one glance on your phone, you know, do I have the kids overnight? And then also, who's dropping them off? And who's picking them up from events? That's all color coordinated. So you'd be open your phone, it scans your face, you're in our family wizard, and you can see okay, yeah, I'm dropping off at soccer practice, then dad's picking up. And then he's got him overnight, and then we're exchanging this weekend. It's all right there.

Yeah. And it's just just looking at literally the color. You don't have to sit there and read the details, because you're gonna know based on who you are, what your color is, what their color is. And, and so for older kids, too, now, not for the little ones. But for older kids, when they have access to the calendar, if they have an event, are they able to go in and add their events to the to their parents calendar as well? Or can they?

I believe they're read only. But what's nice, we don't see a lot of kids using it. But when we do the the use cases, usually, okay, I have a teenager, they've got a smartphone. They want to know, where do my books need to be? Because I have a test tomorrow. So I have to have a big test I need to study for whose house do I need those books to be? I have a certain outfit that I need for a play or certain uniform for sports. I need to make sure that's with me because I'm going to be at mom's house.

And, again, we're recommending this for the older kids. We're not suggesting that little kids should be responsible for this. I know Kevin's not. But you know, 1516 1718 year olds are more than more than willing are more than capable of getting their own stuff to where it needs to be. So that that's a real tool for them to

know. And, you know, if I was 15 and I'm still getting rides, I can say oh, yeah, I'm getting dropped off by dad and mom's picking me up and

yeah, yeah. Wonderful. I did want to ask you about one thing. If there is a high conflict situation, and I'm kind of going back to what you were talking about with to text messages because I actually just recently was involved with a client whose x doesn't matter who they were or what what the reason was they created a totally spoof email exchange, which apparently now you can do that, where you can actually make it looked like an email is coming from the up. It's a spoof account from the or a fake account from the other person. And it was this high conflict horrific. Her scene and swearing and name calling and bad mouthing the kids. And this was all falsified by the other parents. So if you are dealing with one of those difficult people, ensuring that all the the emails are coming, or the texts or any communication is going back and forth through our family wizard completely eliminates that. Because, you know, if, if it comes to court, you can say, well, that's not how I communicate, this is how I communicate and then just go with that. So that's really important. What about monitoring by divorce coaches, or attorneys or mental health professionals? What is their capability for that in the system?

Yeah, so a lot of times, you've got a divorce coach you might have in Texas, of parenting facilitator, a custody evaluator, and then maybe your attorney, right, so you can give them access to your account, they have free accounts, you would send them a request to link up, once they accept that they can access your account. And what that does, it saves you time and money. Because think about let's say you're litigating think about all the time you spend, okay, we need to put emails together text messages, we've got Facebook Messenger, we've been messaging on Instagram, and trying to make sense of all that, if all the communications in our family wizard, your attorney can go into our messages, click prints, they've got all the messages in an easy to look at PDF report where nothing's been deleted, and you have read receipts. So from your perspective, as a parent going through divorce, this is gonna save you a lot of time and a lot of money. But then also, you're gonna get more favorable results. Because you're looking at one source of truth, there's no way to kind of redefine by saying, well, something's missing or not, you know, you're seeing 100% of what's occurred.

Yeah. And here's my, here's, I'm throwing this in here. If you are communicating with your ex, or your or the other, the parent of your child using Instagram, Facebook, or any social media platform, cut it out right now. That is nothing but a recipe for disaster, because there's too many people that can get access to that. So. So thank you for that. That's a really good tool. Because you're right. The more that you can streamline data for your attorney, the lower your costs are, because you're paying for them to access that print it, review it, catalog it everything. So if they can do it all in one, with one push of a button, it's going to be a lot less money for you.

Yeah, we'll actually say, let's say you're going to agree to our family wizard, right. Most people agree to this. So you're in mediation and you agree to it. Your attorneys are going to stipulate that this is how you communicate or the judge might court order it. That's the best way to get both parties on board. And ask your attorney about the model court order language for our family wizard where you say we are going to exclusively communicate through our family wizard, unless it's an emergency. That way you're maintaining this high level of documentation, all of your communications going through one play. And you're not having to worry about okay, we have this other chain going on on Snapchat, and I'm taking screenshots of that. We really like Marty said, you want to get all the communication in one place. And that's it's an emergency.

Yeah. Right. So Kevin, that's a good that's another good topic you brought up our another part that I think concerns a lot of CO parents is the medical stuff. Let's say there is a medical emergency how or a medical appointment. How does our family wizard perhaps support co parents in handling medical issues or dental issues or therapists or whoever may be? Whatever professionals may be supporting the kids during this?

So we have something called the Family info bank. I believe it's been shortened just to info bank. So it's a place to put things like immunization records, health insurance numbers, shirt size, shoe size, blood type. So kid falls and breaks their arm. We're already supposed to be limiting our communication. If I don't know my kids health insurance number, I can just log into the to the app and look for it. I don't have to reach out and say Hey Marty, Sorry to bug you. Can you remind me what the health insurance number is? And then that all those little extra two matches between parents can lead to more pressure to more pressure points. So if you have that info uploaded, I don't have to reach out to Marty. I go to the doctor's office, I've got the info, and it's done. So the more information you can upload at the beginning, when you're starting to sign up for our family wizard, the less conflict there's going to be down the road.

So I'm guessing and I'm guessing with all of the info that stored there, this is a there's some kind of security level on on our family wizard that protects that kind of information. Is that accurate?

Yeah, so we're probably more secure than your bank. If you go to our site, it says HTTPS, you'll see that on a bank's website, it'll have the lock symbol, it means it's a highly secured site, we've got a lot of sensitive information. We have people who use our family wizard, because they've been in domestic violence situations. And so they still need to communicate with their CO parent. But they need the safety to know, okay, they don't know my phone number, they don't know my new address. So we take the highly seriously. We're also used in over 80 countries. And there's other countries that take data security even more seriously than the US. So specifically in the UK and Canada. We're GDPR compliant, and there. So like I said, we're probably more secure than your bank. We have servers in multiple locations. So if there was a natural disaster, we'd still have all the information backed up. So something we take really seriously.

Yeah. And that's reassuring. And, you know, I mean, I knew that you had that. But I think it's reassuring for people to just just hear that level, because you're right, the US is not as secure as they think, compared to what other countries are requiring. So that's, you know, like you say that GDP are, that's really important, all that kind of stuff. So is there anything that you think we haven't covered that maybe we need to we need to focus on, I know, we've done this so short, in such a short period of time, there's just so many resources that our family wizard can help with? I didn't see it,

I can tell a few stories of situations people run into and how they use our family wizard, please,

that would be really helpful. Thank you.

So for instance, let's say you're using the calendar, and Alright, you've got your agreed to schedule. But one parent, let's say mom takes the kids fishing in the first week of June each year. And so how do we deal with that it's going to be a deviation from the schedule. So you can put custom holidays in that override the parenting schedule. So you can say, mom's fishing trip, you overlay it over the calendar. As soon as that custom holiday is done, it'll revert back to the original schedule. And people use that for Christmas and Thanksgiving and birthdays. People end up back in court because they can't figure out. Okay, I want to take the kids to see my parents who are retired in Florida for Christmas. And they'll end up back in court litigating that stuff. So what's nice is you can cut up those holidays and say, okay, parent A has the kids Christmas Eve, parent B is taking the Christmas, and then we're going to grandparents for three days. And they can actually spell that out on the calendar. Another thing in the calendar that we've been doing for years, but a lot of people don't know is time modifications. So simple time modifications, you want to trade a weekend. You want to trade a day, people end up back in court because they can't agree to it. So we've added a trade swap tool. Have you heard about this at all? Yes, yes.

I have a client that used it and she loves it. So yeah.

So it's I know you're based in Texas, I'll compare it to fantasy football, because I know there's a lot of football lovers there. So it's, it's like a trade so I can say hey, Marty, Can I switch this weekend with you? Um, can I trade you the 28th through the 29th for the 14th through the 15th. Marty gets the request. She can approve it, refuse it or refuse and make a counteroffer. So she can say, you know, 14th through the 15th doesn't work? Could you do the 12th through the 13th. And then it comes back to me, I can approve it, refuse it or make a counteroffer. Once that trade is approved, it'll automatically change on the calendar. So again, focusing on saving you money, first of all, I'm litigating and then giving you the power back right. I think there's a little bit of a disconnect in the US with how much we litigate these things. Oh, yeah, really want to be giving you the tools to do this on your own. You're perfectly capable of it. And we do understand these can be highly emotional situations. It can be tough to navigate ate those first few years, when both people are very emotional. But if you can do this stuff on the on your own each one of these as a little when each one of them, each one of these is gaining confidence, like, okay, we're starting to do this, we're starting to co parent, and we're avoiding going to court, we're saving money. So each time you can accomplish one of these things. It's good for your relationship as CO parents, but it's more importantly, good for the kid who's, you know, we always focus on being child focus what's in the best interest?

Yeah, yeah, I love that. And I liked the idea of being able to negotiate through through our family wizard, because there's a record of it. And, you know, that's really, really co parenting is just going to be an ongoing negotiation, that's an better you get at it, the less you go back to either mediation or litigation, the more money you save, but I really liked the fact like you say, the more your kids see mom and dad, working together and modeling how to deal with life, because it comes up no matter what you plan on doing. So. Kevin, is there any? Have you seen? Have you seen any instances where our family wizard, or you've heard from clients where it's really turned around a really difficult communication between co parents? Do you ever get any feedback along those lines?

Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, we've got countless stories of people thanking us, what I like is I'll go to a conference, and someone from a different conference will see my booth setup. And they'll come across and be like, Hey, I'm not even with the conference, set your attendee but I'm, I'm apparent on our friendly wizard, I just want to say thanks. And that's I've been our family wizard for almost eight years. Now, I believe in what we do, I think it's a great product. I think we're helping kids and families. But it's really nice to hear from people to say, hey, we were having a tough time communicating, and to your audience is nothing to be ashamed of. It's it is. And what I can tell you is, things can get better. And they will get better if you use the tools that are out there were one of those tools. So you know, that father comes up and says, Thanks, you know, without this tool, we wouldn't have been able to cope parents successfully. Yeah. But what I'll tell you, it's, it's not a one size fits all thing. How use our family wizard, you can tailor it to you know, if you guys are just struggling with expenses, use it for expenses, if it's just the messaging piece, you can use that in the calendar. But it's our family wizard, plus someone like Marty coaching, maybe it's a custody evaluator, sober link, if there's alcohol struggles, involved, therapy, you know, one on one, therapy, anger management, it's all of those that umbrella of tools, and what you need from that umbrella that's gonna lead you to success.

Yeah, and you're right, the more the more support you can get, the more tools you have in your toolbox, the more effective you're going to be. I recommend and I'm not, I am not paid by our family wizard, I have no connection with family wizard, other than I recommend them, I recommend to all my clients, even if they've got a fairly decent co parenting relationship, invest 150 bucks for one year, it's there, if you need it, at least use the calendar that is you know, for 150 bucks, the calendar is worth it. And that's if you go the the deluxe package, if you just want to go the middle align package, it's it's right around 100. It is so beneficial that, you know, get it on there, use the calendar, play around with the tools. And you know if things are going well, if you haven't used it once in the whole year, maybe you don't renew it the next year, that's up to you. But it the first year is critical to get this stuff, right. And so most people aren't and I've been working in this field for over 20 years, most people that I have recommended this to that have used it have continued on until you know until their kids are maybe in their late teens and are sort of managing everything on their own by that time. Other than that it I mean, if you've got little ones, this is helpful. All the school information, everything's in there teachers names, contact numbers, everything you need, as both parents can be inputted to that. So Kevin covered a ton of information. What do you think is the most important thing you'd like parents to remember from this conversation?

Oh, let me just tag a couple of things on what you just said. And then I'll kind of close to a conclusion. So some families are going to use it to the last kid turns 18 The average use though for a family is about three and a half years. So I find that interesting, because what that tells me is after all He said, Your One emotions are really high struggling to communicate. After a couple years and emotions are coming down communications getting better, we see ourselves as a training ground, not a punishment, we're gonna give you the tools you need to communicate. And after three or four years, a lot of families are ready to go back to text and email and voice. The other thing I wanted to mention is our fee waiver. So if you're listening to this, and you're thinking, Hey, I've already spent a bunch of money litigating, or I'm, I'm already working with a pro bono attorney, I'm on government assistance, like food stamps, I can't afford the 100 bucks for the year, we do have a fee waiver, we will waive the fee in those cases. So we can get a year subscription for no money at all. So keep that in mind. Yep, and we've done 1000s and 1000s of those over the last few years. That's something I'm really proud about. So take advantage of those, if that's the right fit for you. Kind of some final thoughts. I'd say you're not alone. You're in a tough spot, but you're not alone. It will get better if you use the tools. co parenting is great. Don't be afraid to parallel parent, we don't talk about parallel parenting a lot was kind of a buzzword a few years ago. Yeah, parallel Ubik even business like you know, short messages that are about the child and about the subject of the message. If you haven't read the book, Biff by Bill, Edie, I highly recommend it. F stands for brief, informative, friendly firm. It's a way of communicating in high conflict situations that will help you reduce conflict and get to the point and lower emotions. It's something I use in all my messages now. And it's really helped me so yeah, that's what I'd say is you're not alone. Use the tools like our family wizard to help you get through it. And, yeah, keep things short to the point and keep a child focused. I'd say sometimes we want to be right. But there's a lot of situations where it's best to do what's best in the best interest of the child, and maybe fall on your sword here and there and say, Hey, I don't need to be right. Let's just get to a solution that's best for our kid.

Yeah, love that message. Kevin, if people want to find out more about our family wizard, what's the best way to do that?

Okay, so you can reach out we have people on the phone seven days a week in the US phone numbers 86675599918667559991. Or if you weren't able to write that down, you can go to our family wizard.com Oh, you are our family wizard.com and info at our family wizard.com If you want to send us an email,