Let Them Be Kids Blog Tour: Author Interview

 

Welcome to the Blog Tour for Let Them Be Kids by Jessica Smartt, hosted by JustRead Publicity Tours!

Title: Let Them Be Kids
Author: Jessica Smartt
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Release Date: June 9, 2020
Genre: Christian Living/Parenting

As every parent hopes to raise kids with good manners and values, Jessica Smartt’s practical guide fills the gaps of uncertainty and provides tips on how parents can equip their children in purity, faith, and creativity.
Former English teacher and homeschooling mother of three, Jessica Smartt felt the weight of helping prepare her kids for life, especially with all the outside pressures and influence of the world. She struggled with how she could raise her children with a sense of adventure, self-confidence, manners, faith, and the ability to utilize technology wisely.

Let Them Be Kids is Jessica’s offering of grace and confidence to moms, giving them practical ideas to meet these challenges. Her well-researched, tested methods, woven together with her personal stories and witty humor, deliver wisdom on the tough topics of life, such as

• family time vs. outside activities,
• being “cool” or not,
• boredom,
• technology usage
• sexual purity, and
• showing grace when kids disobey.

Part story and part guidebook, every chapter includes doable strategies and encouragement for the journey.

Let Them Be Kids helps moms feel confident and equipped with ways to provide a safe, healthy, Christ-centered childhood for their children. It leads them to conquer fear and find truth that transforms them and their families as it reminds them how to enjoy and cherish the special memory-making moments of building family values together.

PURCHASE LINKS*: Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Christianbook  

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Jessica Smartt is a former English teacher turned homeschooling mama of three. A week after her first baby was born, she began her motherhood blog “Smartter” Each Day. Jessica and her husband live in beautiful North Carolina, where she loves hiking with kids (mostly), steaming coffee in the afternoon, family bike rides, and anything that’s ever been done to a potato.

CONNECT WITH JESSICA: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram  

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Hi Jessica! Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions and giving my readers the chance to get to know you and your new book- Let Them Be Kids- a little bit better. I always like to begin these interviews the same way with something fun… tell us 5 random facts about yourself that we WON’T find in your bio!

-    I have a phobia and fascination with tornadoes

-    I always wanted to be Miss America

-    I have a huge appetite and sometimes wake up in the middle of the night to eat more meals. Haha

-    I have 9,460 unread emails but I always go to bed with a clean sink.

-    I am really good at guessing people’s Enneagram or Meyers Briggs

Can you tell us a little bit about Let Them Be Kids?

This book is my attempt at a deep encouragement to parents. An encouragement to stop rushing, stop putting pressure on their children or themselves to be perfect and mature too early, an encouragement that you can make changes in your home, an encouragement to give our own kids the things we loved about our childhood.

I love the idea behind your book, and cannot wait to read it myself. I’m especially excited about the sections that talk about healthy boredom and imagination. Some of my own favorite childhood memories are those in which those bored moments inspired fantastic imaginary worlds! What is your own favorite childhood memory?

Great question! We would gather at my Grammy’s farm and run wild all over. Riding horses, eating popsicles and frozen pizzas, building tree forts, putting on pet shows and talent shows, playing board games late at night with the fun uncles and aunts.


The world has changed so drastically over the past few months and it can be tough as parents to navigate this ‘new normal’ with our children. What advice would you offer parents to allow kids to be kids during these unusual times? How is your own family using the time at home?

Another great question. I would suggest every person create a summer goals and bucket list. Every one of us set goals for the summer in areas like reading, entrepreneurial, spiritual, service, cooking, physical, and new hobbies. This made us feel so much better about our summer even though it will be missing some of the things we’ve looked forward to.

I have found that writers are so often some of the best readers too. If we were to take a look at your own TBR, what might we find there? 

Right now I’m loving How To Break Up With Your Phone, Digital Minimalism, You Who, And Home Body. I also adore Jan Karen fiction and I’m so sad I’m almost at the end of that series!

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