What have you got in common with Halle Berry?

Not the Oscar, the Bond film or the Catwoman costume, admittedly. But if you’re a separated parent, you may have more in common with Halle Berry than you think.

Her dispute with ex-husband Olivier Martinez over the arrangements for their 13-year-old son has been running through the Los Angeles courts this autumn, attracting a lot of press attention. Amid the headlines, one small detail caught a family lawyer’s eye: Ms Berry asked the court to order that the parents communicate exclusively through OurFamilyWizard, a co-parenting app, checking it once a day and sending no more than one message a day unless there’s an emergency.

Not very Hollywood. But it’s exactly the tool that more and more ordinary families are using here.

Not just for the A-list

OurFamilyWizard says it’s used by more than a million co-parents and family law professionals, and that courts in the UK, the US and Canada often order or recommend it. 2houses, a popular alternative, reports more than 370,000 families. In our experience, where parents are struggling to communicate, a parenting app is now suggested in almost every case by the courts.

Why it beats WhatsApp

Many separated parents cobble together WhatsApp, emails, texts, the occasional fraught phone call and a shared Google calendar that only one of them updates. Information gets lost, messages are sent at 11pm in temper, and nobody can agree later on what was actually said. A parenting app puts it all in one place:

• A shared calendar for handovers, holidays and swap requests
• Messages that are timestamped and cannot be edited or deleted
• Expense tracking, with receipts, so there is no argument over who paid for the school shoes
• A single store for school, medical and contact details
• On OurFamilyWizard, a tone checker that flags a message that is likely to start a row before you press send
• Access for professionals, such as your mediator or solicitor, where needed.

You do not need to be in court to use one

Parenting apps aren’t just for families in litigation. When both parents know every message is kept permanently, the tone tends to improve. Communication becomes shorter and more businesslike, and the children are kept out of the middle. For many families, that’s what keeps them out of court in the first place. The cost of using an app is modest, costing around £130 per annum (although you can spend more for the bells and whistles versions of the various apps on the market). That’s a fraction of the cost of a single contested hearing.

You may not share Halle Berry’s red carpet, but you can share her app. If communication about the children has become difficult, it is worth considering, with or without a court order.