Smart Love

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Summary: A MARVELOUS BOOK WITH A FRESH APPROACH TO PARENTING
Review: I was inspired by this book and I couldn't put it down until I finished it. The Pieper's try to help us, as parents, view life from our child's mind and respond accordingly. They give many examples of how to respond in a loving, non-angry manner to children who seem to be misbehaving. I have already tried their approach and I can honestly say, IT WORKS. This is a MUST READ if you're serious about parenting.

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Summary: Was immediately helpful and I like the positive tone
Review: After reading Smart Love I was much more informed about why children do what they do. I am ready for those occasions when it can be frustrating to try to be helpful and loving to children. This book really increased my understanding of children and will be an important resource for years.

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Summary: Helps parents who don't know any better
Review: At first this book seemed to offer helpful advice on parenting. After the first 100 pages, I got the feeling that the authors expect parents to sacrifice their self-respect in favor of their children's more immediate needs. I am a mother of three boys. I like to think that my children get the attention they need and expect from me. But one thing I definitely teach my kids is that I have needs, too, and some are more immediate than theirs (like going to the bathroom or dressing for work). For instance, the authors tell a story of a young mother whose child interrupts her while she is on the phone with a friend. Instead of teaching her child that grownups should not be interrupted during a phone conversation unless they are vomiting or bleeding (as I, and many of my friends, teach theirs), the authors expect a parent to hang up the phone and tend to their child's needs. Pass on this book. If your kids need discipline or you have trouble talking to them, read The Explosive Child by Ross Greene, Ph.D., and How to Talk so Kids will Listen by Faber and Mazlish. These are much more practical, down-to-earth books that don't make parents look like fools

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Summary: Parenting by using your head and trusting your heart.
Review: "Excellent suggestions on how to be nurturing and compassionate so that your child can become well adjusted and happy." -Ann Landers

Every parent wants to raise confident and caring children. Now, with Smart Love, parents can avoid common childrearing mistakes, and obey their natural desire to ensure their children's perfect happiness and emotional well-being. In this revolutionary new parenting book, Martha Heineman Pieper, Ph.D., and William J. Pieper, M.D., show that the key to raising happy children is giving them unconditional love and support. The renowned parenting experts draw on their scholarly and clinical work helping parents and children, as well as on their own experience raising five children, to show that loving response is the most pleasurable and effective way to parent.

Children secure in their parents' understanding and support have the emotional security and inner resources to meet every situation with confidence and an unshakable sense of well-being. As simple as this sounds, Smart Love is the first parenting book to advise that parents respond to every situation with love and warmth. Every baby is born an optimist, they argue, convinced that his parents love him perfectly and want only his ideal happiness. Thus, traditional parenting disciplinary techniques, which use punishment or reprimands to guide children's behavior, teach children that their parents desire this pain for them. Children learn to seek pain and unhappiness in the belief that this is the ideal their parents chose for them. It is only by always responding sympathetically and positively that parents can be sure their children have an strong foundation of happiness and contentment and that they will grow up with the desire to maintain this happiness for themselves.

No longer must parents ignore their instincts to love and nurture their children! The most up-to-date experts prove that "tough love" and punishment are harmful to children's development. Discipline controls children's behavior, but smart love helps parents take effective emotional care of their children, so that children learn to govern their own behavior. This comprehensive and sympathetic approach to parenting is optimistic, encouraging, and emotionally rewarding. Smart Love shows that with love and understanding, parents can raise responsible, healthy, happy, and confident children.

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Summary: Not very realistic
Review: I didn't find the book very helpful (a lot of the information seems pretty intuitive for most parents I know). There are some points I agree with, especially regarding discipline and time outs. Yet I also thought the book had a tone of blame - if your kids are acting up and seem unhappy it is because you are not paying enough attention to them or giving them the right kind of love, which leads to the inner unhappiness because they think you want them to be unhappy. Give me a break. I devote my life to my children (I am home with them full time which I am thankful and happy to do), but now after reading the book I feel I'm not doing enough. Ever tried to cook dinner with a one year old and three year old whining at your feet? Especially when you don't do TV (as we don't)? And you have tried to involve your three year old in the cooking and distract the one year old with a fun activity and they are STILL whining and crying for attention? And you haven't had enough sleep and the laundry is piled up and your spouse is late getting home from work etc. etc.? The book makes it sound like you can just drop everything and be loving to your children and then things will be great.

I would have appreciated some more concrete suggestions and also a little more recognition of inborn personality traits and the nature/nurture debate. I know many people who had crappy childhoods who are happy and productive people.

Rating:
Summary: Better Magic than 123 Magic
Review: I have tried every type of discipline and been unhappy with the results. 123 Magic and the other popular approaches all rely on threats and other types of negativity. In Smart Love I finally found an effective way to manage my children that allows me to feel like the loving caring parent I want to be - I'm in control but it's a friendly positive type of control. I wouldn't have believed that there was a way to manage my children's behavior without time-outs, counting to three, consequences, etc., but it's all here in this book. My children and I are so grateful to the Piepers it's hard to even put into words.


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Summary: A roadmap for working mothers!!!!
Review: I am a working mother and found this book incredibly helpful!! I am dedicated to my profession (law) but also dedicated to giving my children (two boys and a girls 6 months-5 years) the best possible start in life. This book shows you how to juggle work and parenting in ways that allow both aspects of your life to succeed. The Piepers are not against working - they show you how to choose the best day care and how to prepare your child to benefit from it. But they make the excellent point that you are the most important person in your child's world and your child benefits from whatever time you can spend.
For a real world, reassuring, helpful approach to working parenthood, try this book.


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Summary: Beware if you are a working mom
Review: My daughter just entered the toddler years so discipline has become an issue for us. A friend who is an educator gave us this book as a baby present so I thought I would take a look. I was interested in their approach until I read their take on mom's return to work. Basically, they say that children "thrive better" if a parent is home with them until they are three years old. I found this broad generalization to be both offensive and unhelpful. These authors are so clearly biased in favor of stay at home moms, it undercuts everything else they have to say. Moreover, there is shockingly little evidence to back up their various claims. There are two pages of footnotes for the whole book. If they are going to throw around such concepts as inner unhappiness, the all-powerful self and the competent self and trash working parents this way, they should at least have some studies to back up their claims.