If you’ve gone through divorce, are contemplating it, or you’re smack in the messy middle, you already know: one of the hardest parts isn’t the paperwork. It’s learning how the hell to communicate with your ex. This is someone you likely have a lot of emotional heat with: toxic, irritating, disappointing, or all of the above and communication might even be one of the reasons you’re not together anymore.

And if you share kids? The communication doesn’t end just because the relationship does. You still have to find a way to talk calmly, clearly, and with as much emotional self-protection as possible.

That’s why I brought on today’s guests:Tessa Noel and Heather Ruiz from Talking Parents, a platform designed to reduce the chaos, conflict, and emotional landmines that come with co-parenting. Tessa is a certified divorce transition coach and a co-parent who’s lived through a brutally high-conflict divorce. Heather brings 20+ years of communications and leadership experience, and her own co-parenting journey, to the work she does shaping Talking Parents’ mission.

At the end of the day, healthy communication isn’t about fixing your ex, it’s about reclaiming your power and creating the calm your kids need.

✨ If you’d like to watch the video version of this episode, you can find it here.

What you’ll hear about in this episode:

• The biggest mistakes people make when they first start co-parenting with a difficult or high-conflict ex (11:45)
• Real-life communication patterns that support healthier outcomes for kids (16:00)
• How boundaries changed everything for Tessa and why Heather says they’re essential to set early, even when things feel amicable (23:45)
• Tessa’s children’s book Stella’s Two Homes and how it helps kids navigate two-household families (28:45)

Learn more about Tessa Noel and Heather Ruiz:

Tessa Noel is a certified divorce transition and recovery coach with extensive knowledge in multiple life coaching frameworks. She holds a degree from California State University of San Marcos and has firsthand experience in the family courts of California. Tessa is also a co-parent with two children. In her free time, she loves to take them on adventures around their home state of California.

With over 20 years in marketing and communication, Heather Ruiz is at the forefront of software services as TalkingParents Marketing Director, shaping the narrative around a pivotal time when digital platforms are redefining how co-parents coordinate, collaborate, and care for their children.

Resources & Links:

Focused Strategy Sessions with Kate
The Divorce Survival Guide Resource Bundle
Phoenix Rising: A Divorce Empowerment Collective
Kate on Instagram
Kate on Facebook
Kate’s Substack Newsletter: Divorce Coaching Dispatch

The Divorce Survival Guide Podcast Episodes are also available YouTube!

Talking Parents
Talking Parents on Facebook
Talking Parents on Instagram
Talking Parents on LinkedIn
Talking Parents on TikTok
Talking  Parents on YouTube
Tessa on Instagram
Stella’s Two Homes

Show Transcript:

Kate Anthony: Hey everyone, welcome back. So if you’ve been through divorce, which you either are going through or are contemplating, if you’re listening to this podcast right, or if you are in the thick of it. You already know that one of the hardest parts isn’t just signing the papers, it’s learning how to communicate with your ex.

Kate Anthony: This is probably somebody that you have a lot of emotional heat with, whether it’s toxic or just annoying or whatever. Communication is probably among the reasons that you’re not with this person anymore and yet. You have to keep doing it. So if you share kids, unfortunately, communication doesn’t just end when the relationship does.

Kate Anthony: You have to find a way to keep talking to this person calmly, hopefully, clearly, hopefully, and with accountability, which is easier said than done. So that’s why I’m excited about today’s guests, [00:01:00] Tessa Noel and Heather Ruiz from Talking Parents. Talking Parents is a platform you probably have heard of. It is designed to help co-parents communicate more effectively and safely.

Kate Anthony: Especially when things get tense. So Tessa is a certified divorce transition and recovery coach and a co-parent herself. She has been through all of the high conflict highs and lows. Heather is the marketing director at Talking Parents with over 20 years of experience in communications and leadership.

Kate Anthony: They’re both co-parents and both of them are deeply passionate about helping families navigate co-parenting with less conflict and more peace. Welcome both. 

Tessa Noel: Thank you so much for having us. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah. Thank you guys for being here. Tessa, I wanna start with you. So you, as I said, have got both the personal and professional lens on this.

Kate Anthony: You have lived, you are living co-parenting. You had a very high conflict relationship. It is [00:02:00] now in a much better place?

Tessa Noel: It really is. Yeah. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah. So what inspired you to get into this work and then ultimately partner with Talking Parents? 

Tessa Noel: I became the coach that I wish I had when I was going through my incredibly high conflict divorce eight years ago.

Tessa Noel: No one hands you a manual. 

Kate Anthony: No. They sure don’t. 

Tessa Noel: And they say, Hey, you’re not going through a typical divorce. You’re going through a high conflict divorce and here’s what to do and what not to do. I needed more handholding. I needed someone to tell me what to expect. There were just crazy amount of unreasonable things that I had to do while also being a mother of a 10 month old and a 2-year-old when I was going through my divorce.

Tessa Noel: Preparing for a seven hour deposition as a breastfeeding mother, who would think that I would have to. Prepare myself for that, or being on the witness stand or [00:03:00] defending myself against false allegations of parental alienation. So just some very serious, very high conflict things. I had a therapist.

Tessa Noel: I had an attorney. My therapist had never been through the things that I was going through. My attorney didn’t hold my hand at all. And if I needed help,

Kate Anthony: That’s right. It’s not their job. Yeah. 

Tessa Noel: No, it’s not their job. And it would’ve cost me $350 an hour. 

Kate Anthony: Exactly. 

Tessa Noel: Yeah. I needed someone to hold my hand to tell me, here’s what to expect.

Tessa Noel: Here’s the type of person you’re dealing with. And here’s what’s most likely gonna come next. So I ultimately became that person, and that’s what gave me the passion to work for other moms. Not only that, the most important thing to me was shielding my children from the conflict of our high conflict divorce.

Tessa Noel: I’m a recovering people pleaser. I tend to put myself last when I still, I’ll make myself. I’ll make my kids dinner, put the dinner [00:04:00] plates down. On the table and go, whoops, I forgot to make myself a plate. Whoopsie. Yeah. So at first I was just focused on the children, right? But in doing that, I learned so many things that no one tells you.

Tessa Noel: Things that I was un unintentionally doing that weren’t right. And then also ways to just help navigate through this process. I think one of the most. Impactful tools that I saw, or that I found when I was doing my, doom scrolling research one night was, it was a TEDx talk by UCSB professor Tamara a Fifi, and the talk is called The Impact of Divorce on Children.

Tessa Noel: And this professor studied cortisol levels in children’s spit. To be able to find out how stressed out they are when their parents are going through divorce. But ultimately what she found was it’s not the [00:05:00] divorce itself that has the biggest negative impact on children. It is the parents’ conflict. And that was an aha moment for me.

Tessa Noel: That was a game changer for me, and that’s what helped shift my focus into protecting the children from conflict moving forward. And that’s where I found all these tools and resources that now I share with my students and clients. Long story short, my own journey has led me to this point.

Kate Anthony: Absolutely. Absolutely. Look. All of our hard won battles are the things that will lead us to the work that we do. Same for me. So I love that that was your journey, because it’s something that is so needed for so many women. It’s exactly how I got into the work that I’ve been doing.

Kate Anthony: ’cause I got divorced 16 years ago. Nobody was talking about this shit. There was no, there were no podcasts. There was no Instagram. I was, I had no idea what was happening to me. There were no names for what was happening to me. 

Kate Anthony: Heather, you come from a [00:06:00] different professional background.

Kate Anthony: You’ve got communications, marketing and tech. You’re also a co-parent though, so what drew you to this work around co-parent blending these two co-parenting and communication? 

Heather Ruiz: When I initially separated from my children’s father, it was about 15 years ago. And so again, very much to Tessa’s sentiment and tears.

Heather Ruiz: Kate, there wasn’t a whole lot of this around and divorce was still this taboo. Broken home, kind of conversation that was going on. And it was almost alienating, I think. And for many of us, I think as we went through the journey and recovered from it and all of that, we realized it actually was the best thing we could have done for ourselves and our children at the time.

Heather Ruiz: And so being open and being able to share that story and to be able to talk to people very frankly about divorce, we all talk about. Needing to hydrate more. We all talk about what we [00:08:00] should be eating and working out and all of those things, and nobody looks at that as a bad thing. And there are apps out there that help people keep track and do all of those things.

Heather Ruiz: And so being a co-parent myself, coming from a. Divorce that was amicable at the beginning, and then as I met someone new a few years later, got engaged, got married, that changed dramatically. And it was really difficult to all of a sudden go from this partnership working together to almost this end fighting and this kind of one-upping relationship that we got into.

Heather Ruiz: And it was very much, born out of a fear of my children’s father losing his place in their lives. And I became, the bad person in all of that. So when I got the opportunity to join the Talking Parents team, I really wanted to make sure that we weren’t just bringing a tool and an app to people to say, here you go.

Heather Ruiz: Subscribe [00:09:00] or join the platform, and you have records and everything’s recorded and transcribed. I wanted to make sure that we were also providing the help and the resources that were needed that I didn’t have. And that I didn’t know that were available to me. So in addition to providing the tools, we also bring in expert advice and we work with professionals across a lot of different fields to ensure that our co-parents, whether you’re a user or not.

Heather Ruiz: You have the support and the access to the tools, to the resources, the questions to ask and all of those things to where you don’t have to go in and do the search yourself or fumble through it. There’s a place where you can go and it’s so amazing now to see that there are so many support tools and resources and people out there that are willing to have these conversations.

Heather Ruiz: And so here at Talking Parents, I wanted to bring that all together. And build a community for professionals as well as co-parents to come together and be able to work through [00:010:00] this and learn the best way to handle their situation. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah, that’s everything. Everything that we need. All of the tools, not just the platform, but the information, the the stories, the expert guidance, right?

Kate Anthony: Tessa said, when we’re in this, we have a therapist who really doesn’t. Have any expertise in this, no training in this usually. And then you’ve got a, an attorney who you know is gonna cost a fortune and is the most unqualified and most expensive therapist you’re ever gonna talk to. They don’t care.

Kate Anthony: They don’t care about how you’re feeling about it, right? That’s not their job. And so to have the resources and the tools and the information that people need at this juncture is, I feel like only when you’re on the other side can you like really hone in on okay, this is what we need.

Kate Anthony: This is what I wish I had. This is what we really need to know and understand. So I love that [00:11:00] Tessa, you work with people on every stage of this process. What are some of the biggest mistakes that you see when people first start co-parenting with a difficult or high conflict ex? 

Tessa Noel: I would say one of the biggest mistakes I see people making is they’re not managing their expectations well, they’re still bringing these expectations.

Tessa Noel: That they had while they were in that relationship. I remember one of the first clients I ever worked with, she was very frustrated at her co-parent because he was lying to her about who he was dating. It was interesting to me because. I could see that, like, why are you interested in what your, who can, who your care parent, co-parent is dating, and how does that affect, your dynamic, just your business-like relationship that you’re supposed to be having together this child.

Tessa Noel: But then I really could understand I had to gently remind her [00:12:00] that during the time that she was married to him. He was lying to her and she, so I was like, are you suddenly expecting him to change as a person now that you’re divorced? You’re gonna expect him to show up as a completely different person, or are they gonna, 

Kate Anthony: if he lied to you when he was your husband, he has zero reason to not continue lying when he’s your ex-husband.

Kate Anthony: And she was 

Tessa Noel: fine. Yeah. 

Kate Anthony: And also. And also like he doesn’t have to tell her who he’s dating. 

Tessa Noel: Yes. And yeah, it was two things. She was expecting him to be a different person after the marriage, but then she was also expecting him to let her know who he was dating, these expectations that they probably had in, in the marriage.

Tessa Noel: And we really have to be willing to let these things go. These things that existed in the marriage, the roles, the dynamics that existed in the marriage we have to [00:13:00] be able to let com that completely go, even though it’s part of our identity. It’s part of what made us who we were in that during that time.

Tessa Noel: And it’s really hard. It’s really hard because maybe you were the primary caregiver. Maybe you were the parent that was, taking the child to their doctor’s appointments and their, everything. This dynamic completely has to shift, not just your communication with your co-parent, but parenting roles.

Tessa Noel: And it’s really hard because that’s who you were, that, that. And you have to, you’re going through an identity crisis, and you have to be able, be willing to let those things go and do it in a way that is focusing forward on the children. You’ve gotta, you’ve gotta have a business-like professional relationship moving forward.

Tessa Noel: We’re not gonna talk about who we’re dating, we’re not going to. Have the same cyclical arguments. We’re not gonna have the same expectations that existed in the toxic relationship. We’re leaving all of that behind and we’re [00:14:00] moving forward with managed expectations. They were, yeah, they were a liar.

Tessa Noel: That’s why you divorced them. 

Kate Anthony: Yep. 

Tessa Noel: Yeah. 

Kate Anthony: Exactly. 

Tessa Noel: So yeah, mismanaged expectations is I, is the biggest mistake. I see. 

Kate Anthony: I agree. And the way that I frame it with my clients is that you’re doing all the work to get legally divorced and physically divorced and financially divorced, and the last thing to go is the emotional.

Kate Anthony: Divorce, and sometimes we get something out of that connection. Sometimes it’s the negative intimacy, right? It’s like the only thing that we have left, it’s the only connection we have left, is the way that we fight about these things. Or we just. We still love them, or I, whatever it is.

Kate Anthony: It’s the hardest thing. ’cause it’s not concrete, it’s not definitive. It’s that emotional entanglement that you’ve been entangled with this person maybe for 20, 25 years. 30 years. Like of course. Heather, you’re what you were talking about with your ex-husband [00:15:00] was that thing exactly what we’re talking about.

Kate Anthony: Like he was still emotionally attached to you in a certain way that when. You have brought someone else in, and maybe it was about the kids, but also I’ll bet it was also about you, right? That, that he was somehow being usurped. Yeah, absolutely. So Heather. You see how people actually use the platform.

Kate Anthony: So what are some communication patterns that might lead to better outcomes for kids that you see? 

Heather Ruiz: One of the biggest things and this is where again, we work with a lot of professionals and whether we’re bringing them in on our social media pages, hosting webinars, Tessa does a high conflict workshop.

Heather Ruiz: That’s over two days where she works with a small group of people on their specific issues. But again, like you said, it all comes down to the communication. And I love where Tessa talks about really trying to keep things business like sometimes things don’t need a [00:17:00] response, and sometimes.

Heather Ruiz: Things aren’t up for discussion. And so one of the biggest things that we try to push is that at the end of the day, co-parenting is about your children. So everything needs to be child-focused, child-centric, and all communications really need to be focused on that. Anything outside of that really, should be a boundary, should be a line that’s drawn.

Heather Ruiz: Hey, this doesn’t have to do with our child, can we please get back onto. Whatever the subject was that you were thinking. One of the things about the platform that we really try to push is that business like, is that. Separation, if you will. And so there’s a lot of things that you can do there that don’t cause you to have to pick up the phone and make a phone call or even have a conversation about it.

Heather Ruiz: If you’re trying to schedule something, if you’re trying to reimburse for a payment or ask for money or you know you need the insurance information because we’re all going through our insurance renewals this year. All of that information and. Those types of actions can be done within the [00:18:00] app to keep cutting away from the need to communicate or have a conversation about those things.

Heather Ruiz: So I can just put a calendar event on the calendar, they accept it, or they decline it, and tell me why. And you go from there. Or if I need a payment, reimbursement, then I can just send you a request for that. And it doesn’t have to be a big, long, drawn out conversation. It’s very kind of cut and dry.

Heather Ruiz: And so that’s what we really want to help is empower parents to understand that they don’t have to always engage. They can engage when they’re ready to engage. And then also that compartmentalization of keeping all of that together in one place so that maybe you’re not. In a good mood and your reaction to something isn’t gonna be appropriate, so you’re gonna take a, few minutes to draft a message or to figure out a way to respond instead of just off the cuff.

Heather Ruiz: So it helps really delineate, compartmentalize, put everything in a box so that you can establish when you are [00:19:00] ready to communicate how you’re gonna. React how you’re gonna talk. You know how you’re gonna go back and forth with your co-parent with the various things we that we do. And so again, we work with a lot of professionals, whether it’s depending upon your situation, gray Rock Method, yellow Rock Method, or utilization of High Conflict Biff Method that’s out there.

Heather Ruiz: There’s so many different opportunities for co-parents to learn a different way that works best for them to be able to communicate as opposed to react. Maybe to what your co-parent is saying or doing. The other thing too that we find, of course, when things are recorded, everybody tends to mind their P’s and Q’s a little bit more on that as well.

Heather Ruiz: And so again, at the end of the day, our goal. Is to help co-parents communicate in a way that keeps stress levels as low as possible, but also keep people accountable so that you don’t have that back and forth he said, she said. And stress of having to go back through [00:20:00] and unbury through 3000 emails or text messages or bank statements or whatever it is to make sure that you’re getting done what needs to be done with your child, and the more that you can keep stress levels low.

Heather Ruiz: The more you can keep things as neutral as possible, the better person you are going to be, your stress levels are going to be lower. You are going to be in a much better state of mind, and that means your children are gonna be in a much calmer household on both sides of the thing. They’re like sponges, right?

Heather Ruiz: They know when we come home from work and have had a bad day, or something’s irritating us, and we don’t need to add that stress that you’re having with that communication with their parent. Who they still very much love, right? And wanna have a relationship and don’t wanna be put in the middle of things.

Heather Ruiz: So it’s really just kind of drawing that line. And again, putting that boundary and enabling and empowering co-parents to take more control over when they respond, how they respond. And again, all in the name of being focused on the kids. [00:21:00] That’s really what it comes down to on our side.

Kate Anthony: Tessa and I both come to this from having probably screwed it up a lot, in the early phases. We didn’t have these sorts of, I always, I tell myself all the time with the things that I messed up and it’s yeah, you know what? I’m not proud of that, but let my mistakes be, lessons for you guys.

Kate Anthony: But. A platform that is helping with those guardrails and boundaries from the jump. I am always telling everyone, please just use it. Just use it. I believe everyone should start out being parallel parents, and if you can grow into co-parents, fucking fabulous, but don’t. But the way to do that emotional separation is to start out.

Kate Anthony: Separated because we get into our old patterns so quickly and so [00:22:00] easily, right? Which were, the top, top 10 mistakes I made in the beginning. Were all around that. So we’re talking about boundaries, right? Everything that I. Teach everything I do is about setting healthy boundaries. Tessa, you two, you talk about how you went from like super high conflict with $300,000 divorce to now your ex is bringing you ice coffees at at pickup.

Tessa Noel: Yeah. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah. So explain that, but, and you attribute that to boundaries. To the boundaries that you set. Yes. And being not about right, not about what you said to make him see and understand, but. Who you became. 

Tessa Noel: Ultimately, there’s no magic wand that’s going to force your co-parent to become a different person, and so in the meantime, while you’re working all that out, it might take eight years.

Tessa Noel: It did for me. You [00:23:00] showing up as the consistent. Level headed with very strong boundaries co-parent and it’s really hard in the beginning, in the very beginning because again, we’re not fully detached from that relationship yet. And in that relationship as a way to survive, you may have just been the default.

Tessa Noel: Okay. I’ll let you do whatever you want so that I don’t. Have to bear the brunt of it. But then after you’re divorced, you still I was tending to try to avoid setting boundaries because I knew that’s what would elicit a negative response. And instead of that, I went full blown.

Tessa Noel: Okay, we’re, oh, we’re doing this. Oh, we’re in family court. I’m spending $300,000. Okay, then I’m gonna set these boundaries and one of these boundaries is using, only using a co-parenting app to communicate. And I tell people in the very beginning, you have the best time to set the boundaries and as long as you hold that boundary it can never [00:25:00] go away.

Tessa Noel: You can stick to your parenting plan, you can only use a co-parenting app and you can hold those boundaries. ’cause they are very healthy boundaries to have. Throughout the duration of your co-parenting relationship. So if you can set them in the very beginning. And stick to them and not fall back into those patterns because it is hard holding a boundary for the first time and it’s feels uncomfortable and it feels like you’re doing something wrong because you are not used to that.

Tessa Noel: It’s so scary. 

Kate Anthony: It’s scary and you’ve had legitimate experience of how they react when you set boundaries. When you have boundaries and it’s usually not very good if it’s a high conflict situation, but it’s legitimately scary. 

Tessa Noel: It is. It is. Yeah. And that’s why it is so important that you are using all the tools that are available, right?

Tessa Noel: Not just a Talking Parent app, but maybe hire a divorce coach or take an online course so that you are being guided through the process. And you are being validated when you do [00:26:00] set a boundary, right? Or you have someone who’s guiding you, telling you, oh, this is a difference between a boundary and a rule, or this is a situation where maybe it does benefit the children if you are flexible with this boundary.

Tessa Noel: I created a whole framework because my clients kept. Coming to me like do I hold a boundary here or am I supposed to be flexible? And it was just like, okay, let’s create a framework around that. And it’s a my boundary setting decision tree, which allows you to look at it from all these different angles and make the best decision.

Tessa Noel: And I teach that in the workshop that’s coming up for Talking Parents. That’s another thing that I love about Talking Parents is. It’s not just a tool to use, they’re constantly providing resources for parents and hiring experts like me to teach workshops on not just how to effectively communicate with your co-parent.

Tessa Noel: I’m gonna teach you how to responsibly and effectively use AI in your co-parenting conversations. 

Kate Anthony: Oh, yeah. All the time. All the time. 

Tessa Noel: Why wouldn’t you? 

Kate Anthony: Use it for good. If it’s gonna be [00:27:00] around, like use it for good, 

Tessa Noel: right? Absolutely. But there’s so many things that you don’t like. Like I said, they don’t hand you a manual like, oh, you’re getting a divorce.

Tessa Noel: Here you go. Here’s the manual. So then Talking Parents brings in people like me and I’m teaching things like how to use AI in your co-parenting communications. How to effectively navigate when your children are getting electronic di device devices and how to share that between two homes and how to keep your children safe online.

Tessa Noel: And then, my co-parenting decision tree, boundary decision tree, or I’ve got a, the kind method that I came up with. It’s a keep your conversation short. Provide the information only. Keep ’em nice and then determine the end of the conversation. So there’s so many tools and so much education that Talking Parents provides in addition to their co-parenting app that I absolutely love.

Kate Anthony: I love it. I love it. I. And Tessa, one more thing. You also have a children’s book called Stella’s Two Homes that helps kids navigate. Can [00:28:00] you tell us a little bit about that? 

Tessa Noel: Stella’s two homes, 

Kate Anthony: it’s so pretty. I love the artwork. So pretty.

Tessa Noel: Yeah. I wrote this book because. When I was going through my divorce, I couldn’t find a children’s book that my children would actually want to read.

Tessa Noel: They were very young. Yeah. They were 10 months old and two years old. But I was finding these older. Books on divorce that weren’t relevant to our situation. Also, I found that you can’t find a book about separation, right? You, there was lots of divorce book books, but what if the, a child’s parents were never married?

Tessa Noel: So I wanted to make a book that was fun to feed. That you could read it as a bedtime story that was appropriate for parents that had never been married. And that also would give you a good gauge on how your child was. Feeling about the divorce. So my book paints both homes as very beautiful, fantastical little story.

Tessa Noel: Stella’s a half mermaid, half fairy. So when she’s with [00:26:00] her mom she’s a fairy. And when she’s with her dad, she’s having adventures in the ocean. With her dad. It brings. In the importance of a child, how they’re made up of both parents, and how it’s really important for them to have a positive experience at both homes.

Tessa Noel: It shapes who they are, and at the end of my book. There’s some really easy little questions for your child to answer for you to see how they’re dealing with the divorce or separation. 

Tessa Noel: So it’s available on Amazon, or there’s a link to it on my website, kind Mama Divorce coaching.com. There’s a link to all my courses and my one-on-one coaching as well.

Kate Anthony: It’s so great. That’s so great. I love it. I love it. It’s so pretty. 

Tessa Noel: It is.

Kate Anthony: I just love the artwork is so pretty. Look at that. 

Tessa Noel: Yeah, it’s really. It’s so cute. Modeled after my, I love it a lot, my daughter, but she’s super duper embarrassed about it. Like mom

Kate Anthony: Of course she is. Oh my god, mom, you turn me into a book. Wait till she’s a teenager, right? Forget it. 

Kate Anthony: We’ve been talking a lot about. For [00:30:00] people who are in like very high conflict situations, every message feels like you’re walking into a minefield. Heather, how does Talking Parents help those parents protect themselves and their own sanity?

Kate Anthony: When, like we were saying, like setting a boundary really does feel like, oh my God, I am, this is dangerous for me. 

Heather Ruiz: One of the biggest things about Talking Parents, and especially if you’re in, very high conflict if you’re in a, domestic violence situation potentially, is that every, again, everything is recorded, all messages are timestamped, and then you don’t even have to share your contact information with your co-parent in order to utilize the application.

Heather Ruiz: So they don’t have to have your phone number, they don’t have to have your email, they don’t have to have any contact information in order for you to match and utilize the app together. And that’s boundary number one in those situations where someone might be blowing your phone up, over and over and over again on those kinds of things.

Heather Ruiz: And again, then the accountability, the record there, if you are [00:31:00] using and abusing this service, it’s there in black and white. Cannot be debated, cannot be argued, messages cannot be deleted or edited. All types of phones. Now you can send a text message and then you can edit it. Same with Facebook Messenger or things along those lines.

Heather Ruiz: You cannot do that in this service. So you can’t go in and gaslight somebody and, oh, I never said that, or I never saw that. Or Change calendar, things on a shared Google calendar and I never put that on there. Or I always said it was Thursday at three, not Tuesday at two. Those types of situations.

Heather Ruiz: So first and foremost, all of that is in place to ensure that none of that manipulation can happen now. Is that gonna automatically make your co-parent turn into a nice person and not send you awful things? Absolutely not. They can still do that. But the key is you can’t control your co-parent, but you can control what you say and what you do, and you can choose to pull out of whatever that message is, the [00:32:00] things that need to be responded to and the things that don’t.

Heather Ruiz: We have a journal feature within the application as well, so you can go in there and journal and create a response. Sit on it for a little while if you want to before you send it, or it’s a great place to put in tips and tricks, like Tessa’s different methods that you can put in there. So when you do get to that situation and maybe Tess is not available right away, you can go in and say, okay, this is this situation and I have all of these tools or all of these different ways that I could respond.

Heather Ruiz: So it’s there and easy to access and move forward with in that standpoint as well. And so we want people to think about it as where you may be getting that incoming, hostility and issues, but this is a safe. Space for you to have control and to empower yourself and make those decisions based on what’s gonna be best for you at that time.

Heather Ruiz: We also recommend for people, if you know you’re walking into a high conflict situation from the [00:33:00] jump, you can have the courts actually dictate how the application is used. So your co-parent may only be able to send you messages or make phone calls to you during certain hours of the day. They may only be able to talk about these types of topics, almost provide this rules of engagement.

Heather Ruiz: And so we have seen lawyers and judges get very creative with how they work, the talking parent’s application into the parenting plan. So depending on how loose or how tight you want those guidelines to be, they can do that. And then at any point in time. If they can get a record from the application and go in and make sure you’re following those rules.

Heather Ruiz: So if there’s ever a question about he keeps trying to send me messages all hours of the night and it’s 50 at a time, or she tries to call me in the middle of the night to cause issues, or whatever it may be. That’s the other great thing about the calling feature on the application too. You can turn it [00:35:00] on and off.

Heather Ruiz: And so if you’re only able to utilize. Have to receive phone calls, say between 10:00 AM and 5:00 PM during the day. You can turn that off as soon as it’s 5:01 PM so that person cannot infiltrate and come in and cause issues or anything like that as well. And again, if you’re turning that feature on and off, it’s marked in the record and things along those lines.

Heather Ruiz: And so I think like you both were talking about early on, establishing those communications and those boundaries early on is going to be very helpful in the future. As I mentioned earlier, in my case, we were amicable, everything was good, and then situations changed and trying to now establish boundaries or put them in place where things are just chaotic and blowing up left and right.

Heather Ruiz: It was a challenge and it took us several years to get back to a point where things could be a little bit more amicable again. So even if the relationship is positive [00:36:00] and is a amicable at the beginning, you don’t know what’s gonna happen over the course of 5, 10, 15. 18 years until you’re not having to do that anymore.

Heather Ruiz: Financial situations can cause stress. New, spouses, stepparents coming into the mix can cause stress. Wanting to move can cause stress. Wanting your child to go to a certain school versus another school. All of those things can really cause these blowups. So again, it just goes back to.

Heather Ruiz: Early on, figuring out what’s gonna work best for you and making sure that it is crystal clear in your parenting plan and in that custody agreement from the jump, because anything left with wiggle room can be taken advantage of. 

Kate Anthony: I love the idea. I always say, I totally agree with you. I always say make your parenting plan more detailed.

Kate Anthony: Then less. You can always ignore it if things are going well, if you both decide. I looked at my, my, my [00:37:00] ex and I didn’t need that. We were very amicable when we first separated and, all the toxicity that was present in the marriage, which, and there was a lot. But fortunately he also.

Kate Anthony: Was not the kind of person who was gonna make my life a living hell on the other side. He was the kind of person who wanted to now be the greatest co-parent ever to exist. So like that was the benefit there. I always say make it as stringent as you need to in the beginning. And if you back off of it, great.

Kate Anthony: But. Implementing things. You don’t wanna be going to court trying to implement things down the line. And I really like the idea that not only because you see this all the time, like not only mandating the use of a co-parenting app, but specifying how it is to be used is another layer that I think is.

Kate Anthony: Really important and I [00:38:00] think that people don’t know that oh my God, this man is gonna be like blowing up this co-parenting app. Like in like paragraph upon paragraph upon paragraph, at all times of the day. So it’s really good to have that sort of like how this is to be used in the in the agreement as well.

Kate Anthony: I really love that. So I’d love to hear from you guys before we wrap up about like, where do you see this going? What is next for Talking Parents? What is. What are some things that you guys might have coming down the line 

Heather Ruiz: to Tessa’s Point, AI is such a strong and really wonderful tool when used in the right way.

Heather Ruiz: And so we do have a suite of AI based features that are going to be coming down the pipe, but of course we’re going through extensive amounts of training and utilization with the experts and people that. Know all of the communication methods and boundaries and different things like that, that we really need to ensure that [00:39:00] anything that we’re gonna be having our co-parents utilize within the application, it’s appropriate and it’s based off of proven.

Heather Ruiz: Professional science when it’s coming through. And so working together with those professionals like Tessa to make sure that before we release anything like that, it’s gonna be iron tight. But I am really excited with some of those AI tools that we have coming down the pipe. A lot of them have to do with communication and helping people to be able to better express themselves, but also handle situations, kind of work through that.

Heather Ruiz: On the other side as well, we’re looking to try to make things a little more efficient for people as well. So there’s a lot of AI prompting and recommendations and things that are coming so that instead of to maybe having to, like I am having this conversation about. A calendar and now you know, I need to go into the calendar tool and put that event in there.

Heather Ruiz: We’re trying to make that a little bit more seamless [00:36:00] for utilization of other things just based off of your interactions within the app as well. So definitely efficiency, but also assistance with communication and things along those lines. As far as a feature and all of that is concerned. And then just continuing to find ways to partner with.

Heather Ruiz: Experts and professionals out there to really help and give the support to our co-parents that they deserve. 

Kate Anthony: I love it. Tessa, what about you? 

Tessa Noel: I just love that I get to see the app in action and then also I get to hear from my clients who are using the app they get to share with me like their favorite things.

Tessa Noel: One of my clients just recently told me she didn’t even know about the info library feature of the Talking Parents app, and she was like, my co-parent is ’cause they’re recently separated, my co-parent. Just constantly, whenever he has the kids, he’s asking me what kind, what size shoes do they wear?

Tessa Noel: What kind of spaghetti sauce. She’s I’m out on a date. It’s 7:00 PM on a Friday, and he’s asking me how to make the noodles and butter that my daughter’s, [00:41:00] that daughter wants. And so I told her about the info library and she’s I. Everything in there. She said their pediatrician’s name and number, their shoe sizes, the type of spaghetti sauce they get from Trader Joe’s.

Tessa Noel: Literally everything, so that I can just put my phone down and not worry about it. If I’m not on a date or if I am just, having a good time with my girlfriends on my kid free weekend, I don’t have to keep on going back to the switching between, oh. I’m on mom duty. Oh, nope. I am just trying to detach from my relationship and move on.

Tessa Noel: Yes. Yes. It really, it’s really awesome to be able to see the app in action and then interact with my clients who are using Talking Parents and see what they’re using it for and how it’s working for them. 

Kate Anthony: That’s great. I love it. I love it. Tessa and Heather, thank you so much for being here.

Kate Anthony: I love this conversation. Thank you for the work that you guys are doing to make co-parenting less chaotic and more human, just a little bit easier. And for listeners who wanna learn more, visit talking [00:42:00] parents.com. You can download the app, explore all the resources, and see how it might. Bring a little more peace and structure to your co-parenting relationship and remember that structure and accountability aren’t about control.

Kate Anthony: They’re about freedom. The freedom to focus on your kids, your healing, and your own peace of mind. Thank you guys for being here, and we’ll see you next time. 

Tessa Noel: Thank you. 

Heather Ruiz: Thank you.

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DISCLAIMER:  THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL OR PSYCHOLOGICAL ADVICE.  YOU SHOULD CONTACT AN ATTORNEY, COACH, OR THERAPIST IN YOUR STATE TO OBTAIN ADVICE WITH RESPECT TO ANY PARTICULAR ISSUE OR PROBLEM.