Smart Parent: Strategies for Growing Great Kids

Smart Parent is Nancy Van Pelt’s guide to parenting in conditions no previous generation faced — technology, social pressure, changing family structures and high-risk behaviour. It combines current research with Christian principles to give parents strategies that hold up in practice.

What’s inside Smart Parent

Where Train Up a Child is Van Pelt’s foundational parenting book, Smart Parent is the one that deals with the modern pressures directly: screens, internet safety, drugs, peer pressure and the teenage years. It is the more current of the two.

The core is the same — confidence, character, cooperation — but the applications are updated for a household where the threats come through a phone.

• Helping children develop confidence and self-worth
• Encouraging obedience and cooperation without conflict
• Building strong character and values
• Navigating the teenage years
• Understanding high-risk behaviours and prevention
• Internet safety and technology in the home

Who this book is for

For parents of children from primary school through the teenage years, and particularly for parents who feel the world their children face is one they never had to. It is used in church parenting programmes and by youth leaders.

Parents of very young children may find Train Up a Child more relevant first.

About the author and publisher

Nancy Van Pelt was a certified family life educator whose marriage and parenting seminars ran internationally for decades. She wrote from counselling practice rather than theory. Published by The Stanborough Press.

Smart Parent sits in our Marriage & Family range alongside Train Up a Child and, for teenagers themselves, Young Man and Young Woman.

Questions about this book

How is it different from Train Up a Child?

Train Up a Child is the foundation — discipline and character from the early years. Smart Parent applies the same principles to modern pressures: technology, high-risk behaviour, teenagers.

Does it cover internet safety?

Yes, directly.

Is it for parents of teenagers?

Yes. The teenage years are a substantial part of the book.

Is it Christian?

Yes, throughout, though the research and strategies are practical rather than doctrinal.

Do I need both Van Pelt parenting books?

Most families start with one. Younger children — Train Up a Child. Older children and teenagers — Smart Parent.