Useful Family Apps for 2023
There are so many apps to help with family life and parenting. Here's a round up of some of our favourites (and group recommendations too)
The best organisation apps for families
Getting things done in the madness of family life can be really difficult. Parenting is stressful, we are usually juggling far too many balls and it is SO easy to drop some when there are millions flying around!
Being on top of things is tough, so with a little help from technology we can find ways to make managing family life easier.
Being productive and organised is a great way to reduce stress and anxiety so find some of the best app that could help you manage this this year.
1. Google Cal or Office Outlook Calendars
Starting with something that a lot of you already have access to. If you have a Microsoft or Google account you should be able to start using these straight away.
Google cal can be synced to Alexa so is perfect if you need little daily reminders for what is coming up that day or week.
During a recent group discussion, colour coding different calendars in google creates a more visually appealing way of seeing everything coming up that month.
Both will sync across devices, so if you use a computer/phone and tablet you can see all of these on all devices.
2. Remember the milk
This is a to-do app that integrates with multiple platforms and offers advanced features such as subtasks, recurring tasks, and smart lists.
3. S'mores Up: Chores & Rewards
This app is so simple to set up and you can schedule and organise chores in just a few minutes. You can manage pocket money, schedules and keep in touch with each other via the private social feature. We love the feature that allows you to 'prod' your kids into doing their assigned chores!
4. Our Family Wizard
This is designed with separated co-parenting in mind. You can even include grandparents or legal professionals so everyone is kept informed and up to date. The app can manage schedules, shared expenses, and communication. you can 'trade' or swap parenting time via the app and even manage expenses and child maintenance.
5. Cozi Family Organizer
helps to keep everyone's schedules and to-do lists in one place.
It has a shared calendar, shared by all members, making it easy to coordinate schedules. To-do lists will help your family keep track of tasks, errands, and shopping lists. The Recipe Box is a great feature, where you can save, organise, and share your favourite recipes. It also has a family journal, reminders and can be accessed from anywhere - perfect if you have multiple devices.
6. ChoreMonster
Helps motivate kids to complete chores and rewards them for their efforts. Some features of this app:
Task assignment - allows parents to assign chores and tasks to their children, set due dates, and monitor progress.
Rewards system - rewards children for completing tasks, with points that can be redeemed for real-life rewards or in-app prizes.
Statistics - provides parents with an overview of their children's performance, including which tasks they have completed and how many points they have earned.
Game style - the app makes completing chores a little bit like a computer game with the way it is set up and styled so (hopefully) chores don't feel so boring although we are not guaranteeing your kids will actually do them. Hopefully this will motivate them to do more!
7.FamilyWall
This is a shared private social network that helps families keep in touch and organized. You can keep the whole family up to date with what is happening and share things like photos, shopping lists, finances. We particularly like the secure messaging feature.
8. Trello
This is a project management tool that can be used for family organization, with boards for tasks, grocery lists, and more. Not designed specifically for families but it has loads of useful features your family will love. The to-do lists are really handy, and you can switch between views like seeing everything coming up on a calendar. It even works when you are offline which is super useful!
9. Family Safety Apps
Using your phone or tablet's 'in built' options such as Apples, 'screen time', Microsoft's 'Family Safety' and the Google Family link apps are must haves for families wanting to monitor and control the web safety and usage of their kids devices. these are all free options, but if you are looking for something more then Qustodio gets the best ratings online and you can try it out on one device for free.
10. Find my kids
For parents or families who would like to keep tabs on each other! This app isn't free, but great if you don't all have Apple products where you can share location across your family devices, (learn how to set up family sharing on Apple devices here - just make sure you enable location sharing).
This is one of the cheaper options on the market and has useful features like being able to 'listen' to your child's surroundings if you think they are in bad company. You can also see their phone and app usage!
If your child is too young for a phone you can link up a GPS enable smart watch instead.
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