MotherStyles: Using Personality Type to Discover Your Parenting Strengths - Softcover

Penley, Janet; Eble, Diane

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0738210455 ISBN 13: 9780738210452

Publisher: Balance, 2006

Synopsis

An antidote to our stressed-out mother culture, MotherStyles validates the notion that good mothering comes in many styles and explains how understanding how you most often react to your child and why is the most important step toward working through areas that have long given you trouble. Drawing on the personality type-theory popularized by the Myers-Briggs(r) Type Indicator and author Janet Penley's more than eighteen years of working with mothers, MotherStyles explains the combinations of traits that make up sixteen distinct mothering approaches. From the "Tuned-In Mother," the "Heart-to-Heart Mother," and the "Kids 'r' Fun Mother" to the "Responsibility Mother" and the "Independence Mother," Penley helps readers identify which style reflects her own strengths, struggles, and needs and, from there, offers unique and concrete ideas for ways to overcome the parenting challenges inherent to each type. Guiding mothers to an understanding of how type affects parent-child interactions and family dynamics, MotherStyles will help moms everywhere to recharge their batteries, and find success in this most important of roles.

About this title

About the Author

Janet Penley has been conducting parenting workshops for groups of mothers, therapists, and life coaches and for corporations for more than eighteen years. The mother of two grown children, she lives in Texas.

Diane Eble is a professional writer, mother of two children, and the author of ten books. She lives outside of Chicago.

Reviews

According to Penley, who self-published The M.O.M.S. Handbook, the key to making mothering easy and enjoyable is to become aware of ways of interacting in the world (e.g., being extroverted or introverted, sensing things based on facts or feeling them intuitively) and balance personal needs with external demands. Penley developed her "Mothers of Many Styles" (M.O.M.S.) program to free women of the image of the "perfect" mother and help them identify their strengths and weaknesses first as mothers, and then in all relationships. Based on the Myers-Briggs personality inventory, Penley's questionnaires and evaluations may aid some readers, but others may find the system—it involves 16 personality types and 16 corresponding mothering styles—complicated and time-consuming. Perhaps the most valuable aspect of Penley's program is her focus on self-care and her recognition of the unique gifts that each woman has to offer her children. However, trying to work with Penley's system on a daily basis could, ironically, add more stress and yet another layer to the image of perfection: the thoroughly self-aware mother who can respond appropriately to her child in all situations. (May 1)
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Edition details

• Publisher: Balance
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0738210455
• ISBN 13: 9780738210452
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 276