Know Your Parenting Personality: How to Use the Enneagram to Become the Best Parent You Can Be

This book is well written and extensive in describing the nine enneagram types as they might relate to parenting. Each one includes examples of situations and potential pitfalls as well as advantages. That said, I was disappointed about a couple of things, which limited the usefulness of the book in my mind. There is a quiz at the beginning, the answers of which are supposed to tell you which enneagram parenting type you are. While the examples are fairly good, anyone who knows about the enneagram diagram knows that determining your type is rather complex and most people don't fall cleanly into only one category, but have influences from other types, i.e. wings, and move toward other types when at their best, or digress in unhealthy circumstances. While the information presented here is good, I'm afraid a fair number of readers will see themselves in multiple types and may become confused about how to proceed. Ms. Levine uses different names for the types than I've seen used in other material and makes no attempt to relate them to one another. If you know nothing about the enneagram, obviously that won't bother you, but it bothered me. I was also hoping there would be something to help parents identify their children's types since parents are not operating in a vacuum. All in all, I felt the book has value in helping parents recognize how their personality type, whatever it is, may be affecting their children in ways they didn't expect and we all want to be better parents, so that is useful, but from the enneagram perspective, it's not as detailed as I was expecting.

This guide is based on the enneagram, in which persons fall into one of nine (ennea = nine in Greek) broad personality types. The enneagram posits that each of us act in a manner largely consistent with our personality type, whether at home, at work, as a student, as a child or as a parent. An awareness of one's own type and an awareness of the types of others with whom we deal (our children) can go a long way toward helping us understand and work more effectively together. The nine basic types are (for some reason, the authors start with the helper, which is a 2 in all the enneagram literation, and end with the moralizer, which is a 1 in all enneagram literature): 2. Helper - meeting the needs o others 3. Organizer - loving through doing 4. Dreamer - Connection is everything 5. Observer - let's step back & see 6. Questioner - be prepared 7. Entertainer - let's have fun! let's play! 8. Protector - I am your sanctuary; you are safe with me 9. The peacekeeper - living life through others 10. The moralizer - be the best, strive for perfection As a parent, you probably incorporate a bit of each of these approaches in your day to day parenting activities. What parent doesn't want her kid to be safe, to be prepared, to have fun? That said, each of us has a predominant style, a predominant world view that generally colors our approach to parenting and life generally. The book starts with a simple quiz to help you identify your basic personality type. (There are other enneagram type quizzes available online that can confirm your type; www.9types.com has several.) For each of the nine types, the book gives concrete examples of situations where the style is helpful, where the style creates issues. The book is full of tips for how to best work with your style to be a more effective parent. Why does this matter? Some types are naturally better at fostering self-esteem in their chilren; some types are prone to encourage success but can create a crippling fear of failure in their children. Some types foster creativity while others foster discipline. Heck, we're all doing the best job we can of being a parent -- but it's often hard to understand how our "best job" may not always be best for our chilren. By understanding our own type and parent style, we can better understand the positive and negative impact of this style on our children, and we can work to counter some of the negatives. The enneagram is helpful because once you understand the basic personality types and how they interact, you can apply the concept to just about any situation. It is almost always useful as a starting point into figuring how best to approach a parenting challenge (granted, it's not a be-all-and-end-all solution, though; sure wish it were.) I, for example, am what the author calls a "Dreamer." I want to have a deep connection with my child. As a "Dreamer" it is important for me to feel unique and special, so I, of course, want my daughter to fe

Very good book. I also enjoyed the fact that it was a fairly quick read. You take the quiz, and then you read up on which personality style you are. It had great information, and a great prespective in all. And if you decide to (as I did) you can also read up on all of the other personalities, for more insight, and information. And with being a Mom of 3, it was great that I could read it, put it down, pick it back up and read some more, and not feel "lost."

Janet Levine is a master at translating Enneagram theory into practical application. Her previous book (The Enneagram Intelligences)on the learning and education styles based on one's enneatype is one of my favorite enneagram books. Her latest work will help all of us dealing with the greatest job in the world, parenting.This book is short on complicated enneagram terminology and theory. It is definitely geared for a general audience. Even so, if you have studied the enneagram in depth, this is the most comprehensive treatment of parenting from an enneagrem perspective. It has a pragmatic focus on identifying your type and the issues it brings to the child rearing table. Very workable exercises and solutions are provided as well to help you grow past and from these.I hope that Ms. Levine produces a complimentary volume dealing with raising children from their enneatype. That would be a welcome addition to any library.

There are so many wonderful parenting books that help advise and guide us to be the best parents we can be and to bring out the best in our child. However, Janet Levine's Know Your Parenting Personality offers something every parent needs...a blueprint to our personality and our children's personality and how they interact. Levine lays out a clear and highly accurate roadmap to navigating our strengths and developing our weaknesses so we can ultimately give our kids the best we have to offer without getting in our own way. For every parent who wants to connect with their children, reduce stress and be a source of life long support to their child, read this book... and keep it on your nightstand to refer to over and over again. You will benefit from the knowledge and your children will benefit for life.Anne LeedomEditor & PublisherParentingbookmark.com