As a therapist and a Myers-Briggs expert, I often have clients come to me with their parenting difficulties on raising a child of their opposite type. Recently in a session, a parent came to me who was an extroverted dad raising an introverted son.
Though the title of this book may not entice men, I encouraged him to read the book MotherStyles: Using Personality Type
to Discover Your Parenting Strengths by Janet P. Penley. The book is easy to section off for people that may not want to read the entire works of this amazing author, but may only want to go to the section that pertain to them which could in turn enlighten their own personality style and that of their child.
This read gives amazing views and specific examples of real world scenarios interpreting such circumstances as,
“Is it misbehavior or is it his personality type?”…things my client hadn’t even thought of!
As I talked with him about his extroverted personality and how his introverted son may view this as pushy and can sometimes make his son feel inadequate, the father started to notice that perhaps it isn’t behavior but rather just the way his son is, innately.
The father was viewing the son as too quiet, not joining enough groups, spending too much time alone and not being interested in enough outside activities, when in reality this is just who he is! There was nothing wrong with him; he wasn’t depressed…what it came down to that I needed to point out to him is that they are two different people who needed to discover how each personality worked and once they learned that about each other, they were better able to understand one another!
What an amazing gift it can be for people to gain such wonderful knowledge about how each person’s abilities are shown and though they may be different in each individual, it can be lovely when a parent can better understand their own child and parenting becomes much easier after this happens.
Thanks for reading.
Jessica Butts
www.jessicabutts.com
