"Conscious Uncoupling" and Making a Healthier Transition Into Co-Parenting With OurFamilyWizard

In 2014, the term "conscious uncoupling" gained widespread public attention when actress Gwyneth Paltrow and musician Chris Martin announced that they were separating. A term that was actually made popular by psychotherapist Katherine Woodward Thomas, conscious uncoupling speaks to the idea of ending a relationship consciously to reduce trauma and be at peace with the outcome. While some may see a divorce or separation as a contentious period fraught with conflict, just the term "conscious uncoupling" invites one to consider the fact that ending a relationship can be done amicably and healthily. 

While Gwyneth Paltrow and her family's story brought this idea into the collective consciousness, ending a marriage or partnership in a healthy way is not a new idea. It's one that has been perpetuated through practices like collaborative divorce and mediation, and it's also being supported by apps, like OurFamilyWizard, which help co-parents to reduce conflict by keeping communication clear while also shielding children from disputes that may arise.

Conscious Uncoupling: How Using OurFamilyWizard Can Help

The OurFamilyWizard web and mobile apps provide a secure space in which co-parents share important family information while minimising conflict through concise communication. OurFamilyWizard is comprised of simple and convenient features which keep information organised and easily accessible. These features include:

• A calendar to track parenting time, family activities and events for the children, holiday schedules, and more. Parents can even make simple requests for a swap in parenting time right on the calendar. That way, all information about the schedule stays on the calendar without having to be written out elsewhere.
• An expense log where parents document shared parenting expenses and annotate payments made between each other for things like unreimbursed medical expenses or child maintenance. 
• An information bank for parents to store important family data such as insurance details, medical information, emergency contacts, and much more. Parents can also upload shared files like report cards, field trip permission slips, homework, photos, and other important documents.
• Messaging on OurFamilyWizard will always document the date and time that a message is sent and first viewed by a parent. Also, OurFamilyWizard offers Tonemeter for messages which helps parents to be more aware of their tone when communicating. 

Every entry made on OurFamilyWizard is time-stamped with the date and time it was created and edited. Entries on OurFamilyWizard can be reported on into PDF printouts and downloads if needed. 

More than facilitating clear and documented communication, OurFamilyWizard helps parents to be more conscious about protecting their children from conflict. The private zone that OurFamilyWizard creates for parent communication is not easily accessible for children, unlike overhearing a phone call or seeing a text message flash across their parent's smartphone. This helps to shield children from difficult conversations that they don't need to be a part of and lets them focus on just being kids. 

Collaborative attorneys, mediators, and other professionals working to help a family through the process of conscious uncoupling can be granted professional access to oversee communication and work directly with parents on OurFamilyWizard. Instead of fielding forwarded emails and cc's from multiple families all in one inbox, professionals can view a family's activity right on OurFamilyWizard to get a clear picture of how the conscious uncoupling process is going between parents.

The public recognition that Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin's split brought to the term "conscious uncoupling" has only helped to broaden the idea that it is possible to divorce or separate amicably, shield your children from divorce conflict, and move your family forward in a healthy way. The right tools to support a family's efforts in conscious uncoupling can help to make the process easier on the whole family. Apps like OurFamilyWizard offer supportive tools to help any parents working to consciously uncouple and make a smoother transition into co-parenting.