The Inherent Parent Coach

Welcome to The Inherent Parent Coach

I'm Leigh Ellen Magness. For 15 years I've been a child and adolescent therapist. Now I'm bringing everything I've learned to parents to support them in supporting their kids at home.

click here to purchase the Positive Parenting e-course

Click HEre to Purchase A Parent coaching call

When I was in labor with my first child, I announced to the room "I can't believe cats and dogs do this without help!" My midwife laughed, but I was seriously perplexed at how some species manage birthing without community support. Humans were designed for connection and community. Early humans lived in small communities with a few dozen families, and worked together for survival. Scientists now believe that our capacity for sharing food and child care in those early days was the secret to our species' success.

Though modern technology has brought us closer in many ways, it has also meant that we don't share responsibility in the same way. Whereas child raising may have been a community responsibility in the past, it now falls to just one or two adults who may also be working, maintaining the home, foraging for food, and keeping everyone safe. Prehistoric man would have never survived under these conditions, and yet we expect to survive and thrive with the additional pressures of parenting perfectly.

Somehow we end up yelling, shaming, and threatening our kids, and feeling frustrated and guilty afterward. Then we ask them to do something and they don't comply, and we start the cycle again. It's not that we lost our parenting instincts, it's that our society isn't set up to provide the support we need. Most adults are inherently good parents, we just need help unlocking our potential.

Online Courses

Individual parent coaching

Peer support

The first course focusing on Positive Parenting for Behavior Change is an 8 module self-paced course, so you can knock it out in 8 days or 8 weeks. It includes written materials, videos to summarize the written materials, and visual cheat sheets to help you remember what you've read and watched.

Parent coaching calls are an opportunity for parents to ask questions and get feedback about specific scenarios they are experiencing. Questions I most often get in 1:1 coaching calls:

We're handling (issue) with these strategies. Are we on the right track here?
I'm seeing (behavior). How can we encourage our child to engage in safer/more appropriate behaviors without yelling, shaming, or threatening?
My child said (statement). How concerned should I be, and what else should I be looking for?
Our child does (behavior) but their peers don't. Is our child okay? How can we support them?
Does my child need therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, psychological testing, or other resources? How do we go about getting those services?

Private facebook group just for members, with peer support and resources. Ask others what they've found to be successful, or search the posts for specific topics or general questions.

What is parent coaching?

You're a therapist, so is this therapy?
It's not. I'm taking all I've learned and experienced over the last 15 years as a therapist to help parents support their kids at home. I've broken down the difference in child therapy and parent coaching here according to the need, speed, and the lead:

If you're realizing you're looking for my child therapy site to get therapy for your child instead of parent coaching, click here. (Only available to residents of Georgia and Rhode Island). If you're interested in parent coaching, click on the menu tab above.