The M.O.M.S. Handbook - Softcover

Janet P. Penley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0964697408 ISBN 13: 9780964697409

Publisher: Penley & Associates, Incorporated, 1999

Synopsis

Are you a practical mom who tends to the basic needs of children, seeing that they are well-fed, clean and rested? Or do you avoid the nitty-gritty and spend your time encouraging children's creativity and fantasy play? Are you good at providing consistency and structure but struggle with unexpected changes to the plan?

Using personality type as a framework, The M.O.M.S. Handbook helps mothers identify their strengths and understand their struggles. After reading the brief descriptions of personality differences, a mother can make a guess of her type. From the How To Mother to the Action Adventure Mother, you'll find your profile, your neighbors, and your mother's.

Although our research tells us about 80% of the M.O.M.S. content applies to fathers, this second edition of the Handbook has new sections specifically about personality type and the fathering experience: what dads say and when mothers and fathers interact. It also contains a section on Children and Work/Family Issues. With the tips provided, readers can use type to better understand children and improve parenting effectiveness. Type can also help mothers make more workable work choices, understand conflicts, identify work that fits, and avoid situations that are draining.

About this title

About the Author

Diane is the mother of two girls, 15 and 12, and the stepmother of two college-age adults. She shares at least two preferences with each member of her blended family. Professionally, Janet combines an MBA and 10 years of communications consulting with a BA in psychology and experience in social service. Diane holds a BA in English and has her own communications consulting firm; she is currently attending graduate school, working on an advanced degree in theology. Janet and Diane are also friends who have been enriched by the differences in their personality type.

From the Back Cover

M.O.M.S. developers Janet Penley, INFJ, and Diane Stephens, ENTJ are mothers. Janet has an 18-year-old son, who reports himself to be her exact opposite personality type, and a 15-year-old daughter, who seems to share two of Janet's personality type preferences.

From the Inside Flap

How to Use This Handbook: The M.O.M.S Handbook is intended as a resource for mothers and for professionals who work with parents and families. It has been organized in five parts, beginning with the most general and proceeding to the most specific and practical. The introduction to type is brief and focused on parenting applications. For those new to Jungian personality theory, the books and organizations on pages 59 to 62 provide more basic information on personality type.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Dear Reader, M.O.M.S. was created by moms. Between the two of us, we are raising three daughters, one son, and two stepchildren.

M.O.M.S. was born of our personal struggles...trying to be all things to all people. We listened to too many experts before beginning to trust who we really are and what's important to us. Over time and innumerable cups of coffee, we have come to let our inner wisdom and best, truest selves guide us toward being the most effective, loving mothers we can be for our children.

M.O.M.S. represents our own healing journey of increased self-esteem and respect for differences in others: our children, our husbands, our friends, our own mothers, and each other. As mothers we tend to focus on the development of our children, perhaps forgetting to attend to our own development. We have found it difficult, if not impossible, to instill good self-esteem in our children when our own sense of self is weak.

M.O.M.S. and knowledge of psychological type have profoundly changed our lives by increasing our capacity to live and love. Our intent with this handbook is to pass along the gift. May something you learn have a positive effect on your life and relationships.

M.O.M.S. is based on these principles:

1. Good mothers come in many styles. There is no one right way to be a good mother, just as there is no one right way to be a good human being. As mothers, we each bring different strengths and interests to the job of mothering. The strengths of a woman's mothering style are partly determined by her unique personality, and she will have the most success and satisfaction when she turns her attention to her strengths rather than her shortcomings.

The good news is this: you no longer have to covet your neighbor's mothering style. You have your own style of mothering and your own strengths.

2. No mother is a perfect mother. Believe it or not, no mother does all of the right things and none of the wrong things. No mother has the inside track on how to raise perfect children. Every mother, no matter how good she is, is a mixed bag. She has an undeniable human side comprised of limitations, needs and vulnerabilities.

Fortunately, this is as it should be. Children don't need perfect mothers because, as human beings, they themselves will never be perfect either. Children need human mothers who can model for them how to make the most of their strengths, come to grips with their limitations, and manage their humanness to become the best they can be.

The reality is that the very qualities a woman perceives as her personal shortcomings are the flip side of the wonderful strengths that make her children lucky to have her as their mother.

M.O.M.S. is based on the personality framework developed by Carl Jung in his book Psychological Types. An American daughter-mother team -- Isabel Briggs Myers and Katherine Briggs -- built on Jung's theory and developed an inventory to help people identify their individual psychological types. Although there are other personality profiles, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) has become the most widely used. It is popular in business (team development and management), career counseling, marriage enrichment, and education. It is one of the few psychological instruments developed for use with healthy, normal people.

Based on your personality preferences, M.O.M.S. can provide you with a more objective and realistic picture of your strengths, struggles, and needs as a mother, compared to all other mothers.

The connection between personality type and mothering style has been developed from more than 10 years of observation and study. This work includes experience with mothers from all over the country in more than 450 workshops, quantitative research with a sample of 600 mothers, and in-depth personal interviews with over 100 mothers.

The Basics of Personality Type:
Where do you focus your attention, get your energy?
Extraversion -- Outward, Many, People, Action, Breadth
Introversion -- Inward, Few, Privacy, Reflections, Depth

What information do you attend to most?
Sensing -- Realistic, Details, Present, Common Sense, Facts
Intuition -- Imaginative, Patterns, Future, Theory, Innovation

How do you make judgments/decisions?
Thinking -- Head, Firm and fair, Analyze, Justice, Objective, Critique
Feeling -- Heart, Compassionate, Empathize, Harmony, Subjective, Compliment

How do you like your outer world structured?
Judging -- Structure, Closure, Planful, Organized, Control
Perceiving -- Flow, Openness, Spontaneous, Flexible, Adapt

Edition details

• Publisher: Penley & Associates, Incorporated
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0964697408
• ISBN 13: 9780964697409
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 64