MotherStyles: Using Personality Type to Discover Your Parenting Strengths

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.

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.