You trained for your job and took lessons before your driving test. Parenting is the one role we teach ourselves. This program is the training that was missing.
For calmer evenings, a home with fewer power struggles and a child who is allowed to show what they feel.
Please note: the first cohort runs in German. An English-language cohort is in the works. Join the waitlist at the top of this page.
What reaches the child
What we say is usually well meant. Still, what reaches the child is sometimes something else. These scenes play out in many families every day, which is exactly why nobody notices them.
The scraped knee that doesn’t need to become a big deal.
Parents say: ‘It’s not that bad.’
Child thinks: ‘There’s no room for my feelings here.’ In time they stop coming even when something really hurts.
What changes with The Parenting MBA
The pain gets named instead of brushed aside. The child often calms down faster because they feel understood, and it is exactly these moments that deepen the bond between you.
The toy they are fighting over.
Parents say: ‘Give it here, you have to share!’
Child thinks: ‘What is mine can be taken at any time.’ They cling tighter afterwards, because sharing is learned from safety, and that is what they just lost.
What changes with The Parenting MBA
The child keeps what is theirs and decides for themselves. Out of that safety they develop social skills like sharing, in their own time and of their own accord.
The crying that should finally stop.
Parents say: ‘That’s enough now.’
Child thinks: ‘Big feelings are something I swallow on my own.’ It does get quieter, yes, but they are shutting down rather than feeling better.
What changes with The Parenting MBA
The feeling is allowed, and the boundary still holds. Step by step your child learns to handle big feelings rather than swallowing them alone; the program gives this a week of its own.
The praise that is meant to make them proud.
Parents say: ‘Well done!’
Child thinks: ‘I am liked when I achieve something.’ The praise goes to the result, so they work for affection that was there all along.
What changes with The Parenting MBA
The praise goes to the effort, not the result. Over time the child dares more, because a fallen tower costs nothing, and their sense of worth no longer hangs on what they achieve.
Knowing the scenes and the theoretical answers is the easy part. Applying the craft in your own everyday life, in the loud moments and the quiet ones, is the part that takes training.
Parenting is the most consequential task of our lives, and almost all of us take it on without any training.
What it is
Football, skiing, swimming: anyone who does it regularly says “I’m fine, I’ve got this”, until they train with a coach for the first time. That is when you see how much easier it can be, with more fun and less strain. Nobody asks whether you have a problem: the good ones train precisely because things are going well.
Parenting adds one more thing. We learn the basics by doing, and mostly it goes well enough. What we cannot see is everything we do not know. We pass on what we absorbed in our own childhood without ever noticing. We are not doing anything wrong. No one ever showed us what there is to know in the first place.
The method
Nobody here gets put on the couch, and nobody gets questioned in front of a group.
You recognize your own patterns by watching recorded coaching sessions with other parents, and you apply new responses at home.
Watching other parents in those sessions, you will often think: “Yes, that’s pretty much us.”
You watch a coach work with other parents through a situation you know from your own days: parents explaining why their child won’t listen, or why things so often end in shouting. You yourselves are never in front of the camera. That is observational learning: you learn by watching.
Some of your reactions come from your own childhood, and you don’t want to pass them on. Other things nobody ever showed you, and those you can learn. You spot both by watching.
Short videos told from the child’s point of view show how your behavior lands with your child and what changes when you respond in a new way. They are grounded in developmental psychology.
Each of you gets an Accountability Buddy: a fixed learning partner from your cohort, the couples who start with you. Father with father, mother with mother, matched by us. Once a week you check in for 20 to 30 minutes, by call or voice message. Add a printed workbook, and you put small, repeatable steps into practice at home every week, until they hold even in the heated moment.
Learning by watching video is one of the best-researched formats in parent education: meta-analyses show that parents measurably change their behavior with it.
Menting et al. 2013: meta-analysis of 50 studies →Spencer et al. 2020: meta-analysis of 28 online parenting programs →
Coaches
Family therapy, child and adolescent psychology, and systemic coaching: each of our coaches is trained in more than one of these fields. You watch them work with other parents in the recorded coaching sessions. All three are certified by the DGSF, the German Association for Systemic Therapy, Counseling and Family Therapy, have worked with parents for many years and train therapists themselves.
Oliver Watzal has led STIP in Munich since 2003 and works as a systemic therapist, coach, supervisor and mediator. For 17 years he worked at a family counselling centre, supporting parents, couples and families. As a DGSF-certified trainer in systemic therapy, supervision and coaching, he trains counsellors, coaches and family therapists. He coaches executives as well as parents, which means he knows the daily reality of working couples from both sides. His starting point: parents already have the resources they need to develop sound solutions for their family life. In his sessions he helps them activate those resources and use them effectively.
Tatjana Rosenberg is a systemic therapist for individuals, couples and families as well as a child and adolescent therapist (DGSF). As a certified trainer at Munich's institute for systemic education she teaches therapists herself, from systemic counselling to child and adolescent therapy. In her practice she works as a parenting coach with families on exactly the everyday situations this program is about. Before training as a therapist she studied business psychology, so she knows both worlds her coachees come from. Her approach: parents are effective through presence and connection, especially in the hard moments.
Boris Gebhard is a systemic coach, systemic therapist, systemic child and adolescent therapist and systemic couples therapist (each DGSF). As a certified DGSF trainer he trains systemic counsellors, therapists, and child and adolescent therapists. He has run his own practice camino puro since 2015, now based in Freising. He started out as a social pedagogue and experiential educator, and that groundedness still shapes how he works. His approach: strengthening parents and children takes both perspectives.
Voices
Three things they said have stayed with us:
If this saves me from fighting my way through the endless jungle of parenting guides, it is worth its weight in gold.
Men talk to each other far too little. In a structured program like this, that hurdle is finally gone.
What would convince me? My child as an adult, telling me in hindsight: thank you for doing that program back then, it meant a lot.
Curriculum · in six weeks
Every week’s topic runs through the same four questions: Where does our behavior come from? What does it do to us? What does it do to our child? What do we do from now on? Every parenting book answers the last one. The first two are why knowledge turns into changed behavior.
The six weeks move from the outside in, and back out again: first your everyday life, then you, then your child, then the two of you.
The typical situations every family knows, from getting dressed to dinner, plus the expectations that arrive from outside.
How closeness, feelings, boundaries and achievement were handled in your childhood home still shapes how you react and how you measure worth. Knowing your own pattern takes away part of its power in daily life.
How you react depends on the state your mind is in at that moment, and the same goes for your child. You learn to recognize your own state as it happens and to stay kind to yourselves, even on days when nothing works out. You also learn what your child can already do at their age, and what they cannot yet.
What looks like defiance is usually a state your child cannot leave on their own just yet. You learn to respond to what is actually needed, and how reconciliation works after a fight.
It is about the endless list in your head, from the daycare email to the pediatrician appointment, and how you share it without keeping score. And about staying a couple when you mostly function as a parenting team. If you parent alone, this is the week you build your own network of people who help carry the load.
Your own needs are what makes everything else hold. You take care of yourselves, so your child does not have to do it for you. And you decide what from your story stays, what you leave behind and what gets to grow: the version your child will one day inherit.
The 4 to 6 hours are per person. An example:
Together that is roughly four to four and a half hours; it grows towards six in weeks when you go deeper into the workbook. An example, not a set schedule: you decide when you learn, each at your own pace.
Curriculum · in detail
Two recorded coaching sessions a week, plus video lessons and the workbook. The weekly plan shows what that looks like, week by week:
Where should we email the plan?
Done. The plan is on its way to your inbox.
You will not end up on a mailing list.
Cohort 01 · starts 7 March 2027 · twelve couples
By the end, you know what to do when it gets hard. And there is a good chance your Accountability Buddy becomes someone you stay in touch with long after the program.
At the end of October our coaches were in front of the camera with other parents. The coaching sessions are recorded, and Cohort 01 starts on 7 March 2027.
Your risk is capped, in writing: until the start, you can get your deposit back in full at any time. And if the first 14 days after the start don’t convince you, you step out and get everything back, deposit and balance. It is all in the agreement, which you can read before you pay.
The launch price applies to Cohort 01 only. If you'd like your employer to help cover it, we handle that conversation.
Secure the launch price for Cohort 01.
Please note: Cohort 01 runs in German. Waiting for the English cohort? Join the English waitlist.
€500 deposit now, €2,300 at the start on 7 March 2027.
Up to 14 days after the program starts you can withdraw for a full refund.
Taste the Product Night
One evening in Munich-Sendling, with the platform on the big screen and a video lesson from one of our coaches that you put into practice straight away, with an Accountability Buddy for that one evening. We’ll tell you more in the invitation.
Come as a couple.
If only one of you can make it, send the one who is less convinced by the format, so they can get an honest picture.
Please note: the evening is in German.
You’re on the list. The invitation with the time will follow by email.
We’ll send the invitation with the time to everyone on the list. You will not end up on a mailing list.
Founder and architect of the program
I am the mother of two spirited girls (2 and 4), and I am building this program for parents like my husband and me. My background is BMW, Allianz and consulting; I trained as a mechanical engineer.
At The Parenting MBA I sit on the side of the parents being coached. Knowing a lot is a long way from doing it when it counts. The coaching is done by the experts.
Questions, doubts, objections? Write to me directly: juliane@theparentingmba.com
In conversation
A German podcast, “total KONKRET verpeilt”, spent 52 minutes on this program: how learning from recorded coaching sessions works, and what one father said he valued most.
FAQ
The program
A parenting book gives you answers, therapy works through the past. Here you train: six weeks of hands-on practice for the most consequential job none of us was prepared for. As a couple, with a fixed Accountability Buddy at your side. You taught yourselves the basics of parenting; now you get to master it.
At the core are recorded coaching sessions: you watch experienced coaches work with other parents. Parents talking about why their child won’t listen, or why things end in shouting so often. The coaches get to the bottom of it, and you recognize yourselves without ever being in the hot seat. Alongside that come short video lessons on developmental psychology and parenting, a printed workbook and your Accountability Buddy. You apply it at home, because in the moment that counts, no coach is with you. Knowledge alone doesn’t change behavior; repetition and someone who holds you to it do. That’s exactly why it takes six weeks.
A fixed learning partner across the six weeks: father with father, mother with mother, chosen to match your stage of life, not a random pairing. Once a week you check in, 20 to 30 minutes, by call or voice message, whenever suits you both; that time is already part of the 4 to 6 hours. These are things most people talk about with almost no one, and with one fixed person and a clear frame it becomes easy. You agree on confidentiality with each other explicitly before you start. And if the two of you don’t click, you simply switch.
What reaches your child is shaped between the two of you. As a pair you pull in the same direction, instead of one of you fighting old patterns alone. Different ideas about parenting are not an obstacle, they are the normal case: each of you learns at your own pace, and the workbook gives you concrete prompts for the conversation at home. Bit by bit, two parenting styles grow into one, without either of you having to win the other over. If you are a single parent, you take part solo; your Accountability Buddy matters all the more.
Send them the short version: theparentingmba.com/together. It shows on one page what a week in the program looks like, how much time it takes per person, what it costs, and that you can step out with a full refund in the first 14 days after the start.
A confidential session just for you, 90 minutes, live with the coach of your choice, included in the price. In the recorded coachings you watch the coaches work with other parents; your own session is about your situation and what you want to put into practice at home. From the midpoint of the program you pick your coach; by then you will have seen all three at work and know whose style suits you. The session is guaranteed for every couple. Only the number of slots per coach is limited; if your first choice is fully booked, you pick another.
Impact & proof
At the start and at the end you answer the same questions about concrete everyday situations. One honest catch: once you have learned to look more closely, you judge yourself more strictly at the end. That is why you also re-rate your starting point at the end; that way you see the real change instead of a shifted self-image. It remains a self-assessment, not a lab result. What counts in the end you will notice at home anyway: evenings that no longer escalate, and a child who brings their feelings to you.
The coachings are led by Oliver Watzal, Tatjana Rosenberg and Boris Gebhard; you will find their introductions further up this page. All three are certified by the German Association for Systemic Therapy, Counseling and Family Therapy (DGSF), have worked with parents for many years and train therapists themselves. The program itself was built and is run by founder Juliane Berger. The content follows established approaches from attachment and developmental psychology, and learning by watching video is one of the best-researched formats in parent education: meta-analyses show that parents measurably change their behavior with it.
Menting et al. 2013: meta-analysis of 50 studies →
Spencer et al. 2020: meta-analysis of 28 online parenting programs →
Price & payment
Because Cohort 01 is the first, and the first cohort is the only one that starts without reviews from couples who have been through it. The program itself is complete: the curriculum is set, the coaching sessions with other parents were recorded in October 2026, and the coaches are the same ones every later cohort will have. The twelve couples in the first cohort get the launch price for that: €2,800 instead of the later €3,800 per couple, which is €1,400 per person. We know what it means to trust us this early, and we want to honor that trust. You pay in two steps: a €500 deposit now, and €2,300 at the start on 7 March 2027. And if a different split works better for you, say during parental leave, write to us and we will find one that does.
Most of it is only due at the start on 7 March 2027. Some employers cover training like this. And if you need a different split, write to us.
Measure the price by what changes at home afterwards: more harmony in everyday family life, more energy for your work, and the feeling of finally being sure about the way you parent. Add to that the experience that you can bring a hard moment back. The substance behind it: 12 recorded coaching sessions, short video lessons of 5 to 10 minutes each on developmental psychology, parenting and personal development, the 90-minute 1:1 coaching with the coach of your choice, a workbook per person, the Accountability Buddy and the self-assessment. For two people across six weeks that is €1,400 each, and most of it is only due at the start.
Yes, from the moment your place is secured. Bring in another couple and you receive €250, and the couple you referred receives €250 as well. All it takes is your name in the “Referred by” field when they pay; the credit arrives at the program start. There is no limit on how many couples you refer.
Practical
The program runs without fixed times; you decide when you learn. If a week falls through, sick child, business trip, general chaos, you check in briefly with your Accountability Buddy and simply take two weeks for that one; then you finish a week later, together. Your access to the platform stays with you permanently anyway.
Yes. Companies can cover places for their people, as professional development that lands at home. A short email is all it takes; we will handle the conversation with the company. For companies the launch price is €2,800 per couple plus VAT, invoiced at the program start. Everything else is on the employer page.
Send us a short email Open a ready-made email to your employer Employer page
The template opens ready to send in your email app: fill in the name and company, hit send.
You fill in the questionnaire further down without a name, and we only ever see your answers anonymously and in aggregate. We only need your name and email once you secure your place. We pass nothing on to third parties; the service providers who run the site technically are listed in the privacy policy. Payment runs through Stripe, so we never see your card details. And if you want something deleted, one email is enough and we will delete it.
Cohort 01 starts on Sunday, 7 March 2027 and ends on 17 April 2027. The week before, you get to know your Accountability Buddy. Registration closes on 7 February 2027. You can get a feel for the program beforehand at the Taste the Product Night in Munich-Sendling on Thursday 21 January 2027.
Cohort 01 runs in German: the recorded coaching sessions, the video lessons, the workbook and your personal coaching session. If you both follow spoken German comfortably, you can take part. If not, join the English waitlist at the top of this page, and you will hear from us as soon as the English cohort has a date.
Caregiving is leadership. Emotional steadiness is a skill. Family culture is something you design.
Questionnaire · 3 minutes
The questionnaire walks through the situations this is about and shows where you stand as a family. Anonymous, no sign-up, no obligation, in about 3 minutes.