Smart Love: The Compassionate Alternative to Discipline That Will Make You a Better Parent and Your Child a Better Person (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Parents and experts tend to be divided into two embittered camps: strong discipline and permissiveness. How about another choice? Now comes Smart Love: The Compassionate Alternative to Discipline That Will Make You a Better Parent and Your Child a Better Person, a book exploring Martha Heineman Pieper and William J. Pieper's alternative approach to raising responsible, smart, loving children. The authors are longtime experts in child and family psychology. She's a psychotherapist who works with both children and adults, and he's a child psychologist and psychoanalyst. Together, they've raised five children while professionally researching the roots and keys to children's inner happiness. Their "Smart Love" approach to child rearing will provide a breath of relief for parents uncomfortable with formal methods of discipline, but deeply concerned with providing their kids with strong, safe limits.

Focusing in turn on babies, toddlers, young children, older children, adolescents, and kids with special circumstances (including adoption and learning disabilities), the Piepers argue effectively that "tough love" doesn't work, and that parents will get more cooperation if they focus on their child's inner happiness and "avoid unnecessary confrontations with children about behavior for which they will eventually assume responsibility." While this approach may initially feel radical to some, the Piepers' clear explanations and force of research and practice will win converts to their gentle, strong approach. The Piepers write, "Time-outs, restrictions, punishments, and other forms of discipline are based on the assumption that being too nice to children who are 'misbehaving' will encourage and reward bad behavior." Instead of discipline (or permissiveness), the authors recommend that parents parent by "loving regulation," an alternative approach to out-of-control behavior that stops the behavior immediately but doesn't deprive the child of parental warmth or admiration. Smart Love will help parents raise confident, resourceful, and compassionate children. --Ericka Lutz

From Publishers Weekly

Though the term "smart love" seems strangely incongruous, some parents may find the theory attractive, especially those who have been unsuccessful or uncomfortable with such popular parenting methods as using negative consequences, rewards or time-out periods. The Piepers (she is a psychotherapist, he is a psychiatrist) focus on the parent's understanding of the child's developmental stage and instruct the parent to react to the child's behavior in a manner that is "compassionate rather than coercive." Punishments and rewards are both unadvised. Though the smart love "guidelines" referred to throughout the text never crystallize in a complete list, the main premise involves preserving the child's "inner happiness" by using "loving regulation" (reacting to the child without making her or him feel unhappy or rejected). The Piepers disagree with such practices as letting a baby "cry it out" and claim that time-outs cause kids to feel angry and self-rejecting. Oddly, however, they suggest weaning the baby at 11 months, rather than letting the child take the lead. While many parents may find the Piepers' advice a bit too demanding of their attention and patience, others may happily grasp the advice to "go the extra mile" for their child. 50,000 print run; $75,000 ad/promo; 14-city author tour.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Common Press; 1 edition (May 25, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 155832142X
• ISBN-13: 978-1558321427
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (76 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,166,401 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THIS BOOK BLEW ME AWAY!, January 17, 2000

By A Customer

I LOVED this book. I am so tired of books that tell me how to control my kids' behavior as though they were supposed to respond like trained dogs. THis book shows you how to raise children who will be caring adults who can take their place in a democratic society, not trained puppets who slavishly follow authority. Yet the authors are not permissive. They showed me parenting techniques that work in the short run and that unlike all the other books are also good for the long run. Buy this book -- it is crucial for every parent and for our society!

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars MORE THAN ONE CHILD? YOU ONLY NEED THIS ONE BOOK!, January 17, 2000

By A Customer

I have three children, and my shelves were filling up with parenting books. They told me "how to" but none of them told me "why." Now comes Smart Love, which tells me Why, When, What AND how to. I now know how to respond to my children today and also where they have been and where they are going developmentally. For the first time, I really understand the meaning of behavior that has puzzled me with each child, for example, why they start clinging to my leg at about a year of age and don't let go for months. Wise and warm hearted and knowledgable, Smart Love is the best book out there. No wonder Ann Landers recommends it.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Straight talk and help for working parents, January 13, 2000

By	alice f (Bridgeport, CT) - See all my reviews

I'm a working mother who chooses to work but I also care deeply about my children's emotional development. I can see how much my children miss me when I'm at work, but the books I've bought don't help me help them with their feelings. Smart Love both showed me parenting pitfalls to avoid and how to respond to my children's feelings so to safeguard their emotional development. My two year old, who was crying every morning about going to day care is now going happily. His teachers report that he has stopped having tantrums at school and is enjoying the paints and toys. I am so grateful to have this book, which doesn't whitewash the problems of combining work and parenting but shows parents how to solve them! Don't go off to work without reading it.