Smart Love

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Summary: At last! A book that says parenting can be a pleasure!
Review: We have just finished reading Smart Love and as parents of three (and grandparents of seven) we only wish we had had this back in the 60s when all there was was Dr. Spock!

This book shows that if you put kids first for the first few years it will pay off in years and years of happiness for them and also they will be better parents. The biggest contrast we see with older child rearing books is that punishing kids is not the way to teach them to be responsible and successful people. We were told that discipline is the only way and, inadvertently, produced some pretty angry teenagers. We decided to treat our grandchildren more kindly but lacked a coherent way of thinking about them. This book provides that theory and both we and our children find tht it works better.

Read this book! The earlier you begin the happier and better off your children will be.

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Summary: Help your baby sleep through the night w/o feeling guilty!
Review: I just had my second baby. With the first one I followed the common wisdom and tried to get him to sleep through the night by letting him cry. He cried and cried and I felt so guilty -- I spent the day loving and cuddling him and then I felt like I turned into a monster at night. Between children, I read Smart Love - what a relief. I could actually follow my heart without feeling I was harming my new baby. In fact what I learned is that letting babies cry harms them and comforting them helps them by teaching them compassion adn caring. Rather than let my baby cry, I followed the Smart Love advice to comfort her and help her get to sleep. I felt much happier and was amazed to find that after a few weeks she was actually sleeping better than my first child had. So read this wonderful book and stop feeling guilty about the love you feel for and want to give your children!

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Summary: Simply the best parenting advice around
Review: At first I was skeptical, but Smart Love has allowed me to achieve all of my parenting goals simultaneously and harmoniously -- something I never even thought possible. Sure, there are always some bumps in the road, but Smart Love has also shown me how to handle those successfully without ever having to sacrifice the big picture -- helping my children grow into adults who are compassionate towards others, care beautifully for themselves, and are great friends, students, citizens, and family members. If all parents would take this book as their guide, I believe our whole society would be better off....

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Summary: An Terrific Conribution
Review: I am a clinical social worker with almost twenty-five years of experience working with children and their families in clinical practice as well as from my previous work as a teacher.

I enthusiastically endorse SMART LOVE by Dr. Martha Heineman Pieper and Dr. William Pieper. SMART LOVE is based on the most current research in child development and is a revolutionary way of understanding how children develop motives for happiness and unhappiness through their relationships with their caregivers.

The Piepers offer parents a unique way of understanding their children's often perplexing and contradictory behaviors within a developmental framework. Their clear explanations and rich examples help parents to know their children and to feel confident that they can care for their children so that they will be happy, confident, and responsible adults.

From my experience, all parents want to take the very best care they can of their children. The Piepers offer parents the opportunity to parent effectively and to enjoy the process.

My experience in using the principles of SMART LOVE with parents and children has demonstrated to me that this theory is the most effective one I've ever used. I have found, however, that when people say it doesn't work, it is usually because they don't fully understand SMART LOVE. The Piepers' newest book, ADDICTED TO UNHAPPINESS, offers additional insight into how parenting carries over into our adult experiences and reading that adds an additional dimension for anyone wanting to know more about this topic.

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Summary: Smart Love is a smart choice for everyone!
Review: I am a big fan of Smart Love. But I think it can be a difficult read for those who were raised in an environment that promoted inner unhappiness. I'm sure that it can be difficult for parents who are raising children under the stressful doctrine of discipline, tough-love and time outs. I think that could be why some of these reviews are negative. It is truly a major shift in thinking of childcare. However, it is an extremely rewarding read for anyone who wants to be the best parent they can. The Piepers provide information in an insightful and non-rageful way. This is the best book I have ever read about raising children. It really makes you feel good and confident about your decisions because they are based in a wonderful theory! What can be better than producing a happy and confident child!

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Summary: Nonviolent parenting for a peaceful world
Review: Until I read this book, I never realized what we are really teaching our children by seemingly "benign" forms of discipline like time-outs and taking away privileges, namely to use our parental power as a bad model. Smart Love points out that our children use us as their model for how to treat themselves and others and that when we respond to their immature behaviors by isolating or punishing them we are teaching them to treat themselves and others with the same harshness. The Piepers recommend instead Loving Regulation, which manages children's behaviors effectively while at the sametime maintaining warmth and closeness in the parent-child relationship. The result is an entirely different, nonviolent model of how to handle relationship disagreements.
This book changed my life and that of my children - try it!!

If you yourself have been affected by being disciplined as a child, try the Piepers' new book for adults, Addicted to Unhappiness.

Rating:
Summary: The most helpful parenting book I have read to date.
Review: It was so refreshing and helpful to read a book on parenting that addresses the issues that tug at every parent's heart - how can I have a good relationship with my child and, at the same time, provide her with sufficient guidance/direction/structure that she needs in order to grow up to be a happy, productive well-adjusted person. What is so striking about this book is that, in contrast to all of the other parenting books I've read, the authors emphasis throughout is on helping you to develop a positive, loving relationship with your child - that's what we all want!

Yet that's the very thing that so often gets lost in the day-to-day challenges and struggles of parenting - I think what's hardest for parents is that you're constantly questioning your decisions, your capabilities, and you anguish over whether what you're doing at any given time is actually helping your child or hurting her. So what I like about Smartlove is that, unlike other parenting books I've read that have a narrow focus on techniques for dealing with problems with your child, the authors of Smartlove give you a broader framework about child development that you can then use to think about whether what you're doing with your child at any given moment is helping you and your child feel closer to each other or not. What is also helpful, and novel, about this book is that your feelings as a parent are acknowledged - they really capture them! - and the authors really do an amazing job of helping you understand what's going on in your child's mind. So many people I've shared this book with have commented on how helpful it was to have someone describe how your child thinks and feels at different ages. I like how the book is organized so that they really walk you through your child's life from birth to teenage years, and describe with clarity and great examples how you can think about dealing with whatever comes up in a way that helps build a better relationship with your child.

I highly recommend this book to all parents and future parents!

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Summary: How to raise self-centered, postmodern children
Review: Raising your children to be the people you hope for them to be is every parent's challenge. As our society continues to model and promote obnoxious or downright evil behavior as the norm, parents need all the help they can get. Since Dr. Spock first published his child rearing book, eager parents routinely look to books for help in raising their kids. "Smart Love" claims to ride in on a white horse to save our children.

Sadly, the book can provide little wisdom to today's parents.

William J. Pieper and Martha Heineman Pieper, the married authors of the book, have a clinical psychology practice in which they claim to have used a few simple techniques to help children reach their potential. The book itself, though almost three hundred pages in length, sticks to a fairly basic formula: Children are born desiring happiness, therefore maximizing children's happiness is the primary role of parents. The worst thing a child can be is unhappy. Repeated unhappy incidents lead to a state of being rooted in unhappiness. From this defective state children will act out of their unhappiness unless the situation is remedied. In sidebar after sidebar they provide illustrations that attempt to prove their main point.

But the book is deeply flawed on so many counts that thinking people can find no applicable knowledge in its pages other than to simply love one's children.

Cases in point:

1) The Piepers routinely disparage several other methods of raising children, yet provide no empirical evidence for lambasting these supposedly defective or ineffective child rearing techniques.

2) Maintaining happiness in a child is the be all and end all of their method. And while no one would certainly wish to continually frustrate or hinder a child's happiness in the long run, is instilling perpetual happiness the sole objective of raising a child? Much evil has been done in the world by people seeking to maximize their own happiness. Should we be placing such a high standard on being happy as opposed to being moral or self-sacrificing? We have seen how a generation raised on maximizing fulfillment of personal happiness functions, and it is not pretty.

3) In lieu of this, it is not surprising that the primary methodology of "Smart Love" exists in a moral vacuum. This is no way to raise a child.

4) The flagrant antireligious perspective of this book is appalling, but not unexpected. The authors in several places in the book make sure that everyone knows that religion has played an overwhelming role in stunting children's growth by imposing systems that may not ultimately provide all the happiness a child deserves. And forbid it that any child should grow up in a household that clings to any belief system that challenges that people are ultimately good! This postmodern nose-thumbing at any viewpoint that smacks of restraining people from grabbing for anything that makes them happy, regardless of the spiritual implications of that desire, is typical of books of this type. That devout parents have raised many generations of children who grow up to be superior adults via concepts that are not fundamentally based on maximizing children's happiness all the time is completely disregarded. Competing worldviews need not apply, as the Piepers see it.

5) It is difficult to apply the book to everyday life. The authors give vague advice on how to generally apply their thinking to given situations. A quick cross-reference of their advice versus the sidebar life illustrations in which the knowledge is applied will leave many scratching their heads. Certainly, parents must be clever in dealing with their children, but I wonder where all the sidebars in which the techniques failed to resolve issues are. There are too many exceptions to the Piepers' "rules" to make this book beneficial to any but the few parents who are completely befuddled and have absolutely no control over their kids. Not surprisingly, the sidebar illustration in most cases seem to feature such parents.

To their credit, the Piepers get a few things right - enough to salvage this book's rating from a lone star rating. They repeatedly nail the source of many children's true problem: lazy, self-centered, materialistic parents. The authors say that their practice has seen its share of unnecessary, two-income earners. Too many parents sacrifice their children's wellbeing on the altar of money. Families need to learn to live on less and keep a parent at home while the children are young. They also skewer the attitude that many parents have that it is possible to live life unchanged from its pre-child state. Sorry, but children are a privilege and not a right - you can't keep on partying or acting like you did before kids came along. And lastly, the Piepers nail the over-reliance placed on television as the ultimate panacea for harried parents. (In a curious case of "eating one's own offspring" this book was endorsed by the founder of The Children's Television Workshop.)

But in the long run, it is this reviewer's opinion that "Smart Love" contains too many flaws to be an effective aid in raising kids. Its worldview is profoundly limited and will ultimately lead to children who lack a grounding in anything else but looking out for number one.

Rating:
Summary: Makes Sense
Review: As the authors themselves state, esmart lovef is mostly about following your parental instincts. Then why we need experts to say this? (And to pay money to buy a book written by them!). The answer: Such an effort is needed to counter the practices, opinions and advice from various eauthoritiesf, not to follow your heart! These may include well-meaning relatives, teachers, organized religion and society in general. Simply there are too many forces around us stating ehow to raise our childrenf. But, more often than not they are founded on arbitrary rules and practices than sound research or at least careful observation.

The central theory of this book is built on the concept of einner happinessf, a mental entity that grows during the first few years of life, and properly nurtures, helps the person to maintain the inner equilibrium and harmony irrespective of how the things are taking place in the world around. Donft get it wrong. They are not suggesting that your son will not be angry when hefs hit unprovoked by a peer or that your daughter will never cry over a lost toy, if they have eproperf inner happiness! They do claim that your children will not become mad over the losses and will have a better chance of maintaining equilibrium if they possess a well-nurtured inner-happiness.

eSmart Lovef is not against discipline. Nevertheless, it is firmly against disciplining by punishment. The ideal attitude of a parent should be that of eunconditional lovef that remains even when they are provoked. The authors also condemn rewarding a child for doing a deed that parents approve of or lecturing toddlers.

The authors warn against permissiveness also: esmart lovef does not mean that you should simply allow your children to do whatever they want. It is about eloving regulationf: If some activity is harmful to your child, by all means avoid him doing that. However, do so with loving understanding. DO NOT add to the childfs unhappiness of not being able to do what he/she likes, by doing it with anger, or by punishing.

The book is extremely practical. There are numerous case studies and other examples to illustrate various principals.

READABILITY: At the start the book seems a bit boring. But, after that it is engrossing like a novel!

A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE: After reading this book, I made it a point to note the opinionfs various people on child rearing, whenever possible. (Thanks to our baby daughter we get plenty of chances!) To my surprise, I found that many elderly Japanese women (mostly without university education) have opinions quite similar to the views of this book! Is this the inner strength that prevents the average Japanese from falling apart facing those terrible pressures of day-to-day life? (Japanese society is famous for its severe regulatory role in ironing-out many aspects individualism of its members.)

Finally, Piepers are well qualified to write on this topic. The book shows this confidence in the style they state their findings and beliefs. There are places where they directly criticize other opinions.

The parenting philosophy is a highly personal choice. There are no universally accepted rules on what is erightf. If you are still open to suggestions and have not completely formed an opinion about how to be the eperfect parentf, this is a must read!

NOTE: I am not any sort of expert on the subject of this review. The above text should be considered as the views of a layperson.

Rating:
Summary: Smart Love for toddlers
Review: I have found this book to be very helpful in solving the many awkward situations created by toddlers interacting with other children. It is also great now that my toddler has to learn to deal with a new baby in the house. Highly recommended. One of the most useful books I've read on child rearing.