Most of what you are told is hearsay. The message log is written, timestamped and certified.
Included in The Whole Record · Package 7 of 7
Somebody reads all of it. You get the short list.
You already know there are messages in there worth showing someone. The trouble is finding them. A few years on TalkingParents adds up to thousands of messages, and the ones that matter are buried somewhere between pickup times and shoe sizes.
Here is how it works. You download the official record from TalkingParents — the certified copy, the one with the code on it that proves nobody edited it — and upload that one file. Every message in it gets read, in order, with the messages around it, so nothing is judged out of context.
Most of what is in there is ordinary, and it gets marked ordinary. There will be a lot of it, and that is the point — it is what makes the rest stand out. Anything that isn’t ordinary gets three things:
- what kind of problem it is
- how serious it is
- the exact words that put it there
What comes back is a spreadsheet you can actually use. Sort it, search it, read it through in an evening, or hand it to your lawyer without having to explain it first.
- 1 You upload one file Export the certified Complete Message Record from TalkingParents. No screenshots, no forwarding, no giving anyone your login.
- 2 Every message gets read In date order, with the exchange around it — not scanned for keywords.
- 3 You get the workbook What was said, what it does, how serious it is, and where to find it in the original record.
The ten categories
A label is applied only when the quoted words meet the definition.
Here are the ten definitions, in full. Published up front, so anyone can check a label against the rule it was applied under — including the other side.
- HOSTILE Hostile / demeaning Insults, name-calling, mockery, scorn, character attacks, sarcasm aimed at the other parent.
- THREAT Threat of consequences Naming a consequence — court, police, a contempt motion or loss of time — as leverage beyond the dispute at hand; implied consequences; threats to withhold.
- GATEKEEP Gatekeeping / limiting contact Blocking, conditioning or shortening contact, calls, travel or time-sharing; refusing school, medical or activity information.
- CONTRA Contradicted by the record Statements contradicted by the record, the order, or the sender’s own earlier messages. Coded only where the contradiction is visible in the record.
- PRESSURE Guilt & pressure tactics Obligation framing, martyrdom, moral lecturing, scorekeeping used to induce compliance.
- UNILATERAL Unilateral decision Announcing rather than conferring on a shared-decision matter: school, medical, activities, travel, providers.
- STONEWALL Non-responsive / stonewalling Ignoring a direct question, or substituting a procedural referral for an answer on a required topic.
- PLANTERM Differs from a plan term A stated position or conduct that differs from the wording of a parenting-plan or judgment term quoted in the thread. The term and the message are shown side by side; whether it breaks the order is for a lawyer or the court.
- CHILD Child-involving Drawing the children into adult disputes, using them as messengers, relaying their opinions about the other parent as leverage.
- FLOOD Volume / flooding A burst of messages disproportionate to the issue, or a long message restating grievances already made.
Hover any category to read a message coded that way
The examples are invented, written to show the kind of message each label is for. Nothing in them comes from anybody’s record.
How it stays defensible
The rules matter more than the labels.
An analysis that flags everything proves nothing. These are the rules the coding follows, and they are why the result holds up when the other side reads it looking for a reason to throw it out.
Severity
- 1
- Mild. An edge call, or a single word. Would not stand alone as an example.
- 2
- Moderate. Unmistakable in the words themselves.
- 3
- Serious. An explicit threat, overt scorn, outright blocking of contact with the children, or a position that flatly differs from the wording of an order term.
The rules the coding follows
- Disagreement is not aggression. Saying no, citing the plan, correcting a fact, or being terse is not flagged.
- No quotable language, no flag. Every flag quotes the exact words that triggered it.
- The document review checks accuracy only. It confirms that each code matches its written definition and quotes the right words. No one adds commentary on what the record means.
- Summaries are counts and examples. Nothing in the workbook says what the record proves, what a court should do, or what to file.
- Contradicted is only coded where the contradiction is visible in the record. Not where it is merely suspected.
- It describes what a message does, never what the sender intended.
- Using a legal process that is actually available is not a threat. Reaching beyond the dispute at hand is.
What this is not
This is descriptive coding of observable communication. It is not a psychological assessment, it is not a diagnosis of anybody, and it is not a legal conclusion about your case. It does not tell a judge what to do, and it is not a substitute for the advice of an attorney (find a family lawyer in your state). What it does is put the record in a form a person can actually read — which is usually the thing standing between a father and a useful conversation with his counsel.
What you receive
One workbook, eight tabs, every row traceable to a message.
Built so you can hand it to a lawyer or a mediator without explaining it first, and so any single line in it can be checked against the original record in about ten seconds.
- Read meSource, coverage, method, and the accuracy check that was run over the coding.
- Coded logEvery message in date order with its code, severity and the quoted basis.
- Flagged onlyThe same columns, narrowed to what was flagged.
- CategoriesThe written definition of each category and severity level.
- By categoryCounts and severity mix for each of the ten.
- By yearMessage volume and flag rate, year over year.
- By subjectThe threads carrying the most flags, with their date ranges.
- Teaching examplesClear examples of each category, quoted word for word. Counts and quotations only; no conclusions.
See it before you buy it
The workbook, filled with an invented record.
Everything here is the real structure: the same eight tabs, the same columns, the same coding rules you receive. Only the record is invented. Click the tabs.
The workbook you receive covers your whole record rather than twenty-two rows, and its summary tabs are live formulas — edit a row and the totals move. Nothing above comes from anybody’s record.
How to get this analysis
It comes with The Whole Record.
You export the Complete Message Record from TalkingParents yourself — the certified one, with the authentication code on it, so nobody can argue later about where it came from. You upload that single file. The coding runs against the whole record, not a sample, and the workbook comes back with the rest of your package.
Buy The Whole Record and an Upload records page appears in your account. Send the certified PDF there, and the finished workbook comes back to the same page.