Smart Love is a kind and effective
approach to parenting that is based
on the latest knowledge of what a
child’s mind is like at birth and how
it develops through childhood. Smart
Love shows parents that they don’t
have to choose between hard discipline
and soft permissiveness to guide
their children’s behavior. There is
a compassionate middle ground called
loving regulation that enables parents
to help their children learn to regulate

The Smart Love approach to
parenting was developed by Martha
Heineman Pieper, Ph.D., and William J.
Pieper, M.D., and is described in the
book, Smart Love: The Compassionate
Alternative to Discipline that Will
Make You a Better Parent and Your
Child a Better Person. (Harvard
Common Press, 1999.)
Their most important finding is that
we are all born to love whatever care
we receive and to want more of it.
Because children learn to treat
themselves and others as they are
treated, Smart Love guidelines for
managing behavior and nurturing
children are always compassionate
and kind rather than negative and
authoritarian.

Smart Love offers an alternative
for parents who are uncomfortable
with formal methods of discipline
and who are deeply concerned with
helping their children make safe and
healthy choices.

themselves
while building
a deeply
satisfying
relationship
with them. Smart Love helps parents
focus on meeting the long-term goal
of parenting: to raise children to
become happy, secure, and successful
adults who make healthy choices on
their own.