Smart Love: The Comprehensive Guide to Understanding, Regulating and Enjoying Your Child

by Martha Heineman Pieper, Ph.D., and William J. Pieper, M.D. (Smart Love Press, 2011).

This remarkable book is enlightening parents everywhere about the Smart Love approach to parenting. Sesame Street creator Joan Ganz Cooney praises Smart Love as “a terrific book of practical tips, psychological insights, and wise child-rearing philosophy” for parents and other caregivers of children.

Smart Love can be found at Amazon.com.

A recorded books edition of Smart Love can be found at Recordedbooks.com.

“Excellent suggestions on how to be nurturing and compassionate, so that you can help your child become well-adjusted and happy.”

Ann Landers

former syndicated columnist

“In this theory, the paradigmatic (or ideal) development of the child is founded on the establishment of a fundamental care- giving relationship between parent and child which, in development, yields a robust sense of self as agent, appropriate boundaries and relationships between that self and other persons and inanimate objects in the external world, and transforms the self into a competent care-giver. The causal and generative immediacy of this relationship bridges and voids the traditional gap between Ist and 3rd person, and places embodied, interacting, socialized selves in the world in a way that eliminates many traditional epistemological and ontological problems concerning the self.”

William C. Wimsatt

Department of Philosophy, Committee on Evolutionary Biology,
Committee on Conceptual Foundations of Science, the University of Chicago

“At last! A parenting book that tells dads and moms it’ OK to follow their healthiest instincts. This definitely isn’t tough love, but it isn’t permissiveness either. Over decades of experience, the Piepers have developed and tested a positive approach that is successful with all kinds of kids. Whether you’re a parent or a professional, you will welcome the good news in Smart Love. You can enjoy a relationship with children that’s based on mutual respect. You don’t have to get tough-you can get smart!”

David S. Liederman

former Executive Director,
Child Welfare League of America

“Smart Love is a terrific book of practical tips, psychological insights, and wise childrearing philosophy. Everyone who is smart enough to read Smart Love will have a much better idea of why babies to adolescents do what they do and of how to steer a peaceful and loving course through the daily and sometimes perplexing challenges of parenting.”

Joan Ganz Cooney

co-founder of Children’s Television Workshop and originator of “Sesame Street

“Martha and William Pieper focus on every parent’s desire: the happiness of their children. They recognize that the best thing parents can do to achieve that goal is to provide love and attention in ways their children can understand and use. They encourage the long-term view of development that speaks to children’s deep feelings of worthiness rather than to the here-and-now of how the child is behaving. The Piepers’ approach to parenting makes the process easier and more pleasurable for both children and parents. This book is a great overview as well as a resource for solving problems.”

Barbara T. Bowman

former Executive Director, Erikson Institute for Early Childhood Education