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Can Myers-Briggs testing make us better parents?
by Helaine Olen
February 26, 2007
If parenthood is a career, I sometimes suspect I'm in the wrong line of business.
I despise schedules and organized activities, the lifeline of the modern mom's existence.
I love my two boys — Jake and Luke — dearly, but there are too many days, I am sad to confess, when the combination of their loud voices, high energy levels and non-stop needs sets my nerves aflame. I yell. I threaten. I know this is not the best way to deal with two children with the combined Want to see how you'd be classified if your home was a corporation? Take one
of these Myers-Briggs tests: HumanMetrics, ColdBoot, CognitiveProcesses, PersonalityTest.
Then read about your parenting style here:
ESTJ Dependable and orderly in their habits, they are community minded and can
be counted on to fulfill their commitments. As parents, they excel at managing
large families but can take their children’s setbacks and failures too
personally.
ESTP Adventurous and charming, they are socially astute and pragmatic in their
attitudes. As parents, they can make the most boring chores seem like fun but
struggle to enjoy quieter moments with their kids.
ESFJ Outgoing and social, they love to entertain and make excellent hosts. As
parents, they enjoy close relationships with their children but are highly sensitive
to the opinions of other moms and dads.
ESFP Socially active and well-liked, they can get along with almost anyone.
As parents, they are playful and fun, and often popular with children other than
their own but they struggle more than most of their peers with balancing their
own needs with those of their children.
ENTJ Natural leaders, they often rise to commanding positions in business, the
military or any organization they are involved in. As parents, they excel at
organizing the family unit, but need to be reminded to enjoy downtime too.
ENTP Excellent conversationalists and entrepreneurs, they are independent minded
and oppressed by routine. As parents, they are spontaneous and on-the go, but
can feel hamstrung by clingy children.
ENFJ Gregarious and lively, they are empathetic and charismatic leaders who seek
harmony in their interpersonal relations. As parents, they recognize each child’s
uniqueness while still providing them structure and organization. However, they
could use occasional reminders to set aside time for themselves.
ENFP Curious lovers of change, they do best in environments that offer variety.
They are hyper sensitive to the motivations and feelings of other people. As
parents, they are playful and enthusiastic, but can fall victim to trying to
do too much.
Continued on the next page.age of ten. But what I understand intellectually is different from how I sometimes — okay, often — behave when the constant cries of "Mommy!" become too much.
Moreover, I suspect there are basic personality conflicts adding to my tension level. Jake, seven, a charming and handsome future criminal defense attorney, is incapable of taking no for an answer. Luke, almost four, my future comedian, is in constant movement and performs for the crowd when he doesn't feel he is getting his share of attention — which is almost all the time. Jake recently asked if Luke came with an off switch. He said the constant noise wore on him. I understood. Different as they are, neither child understands the virtues of silence. My husband once drew stares in a neighborhood store when he yelled at the boys, "Stop using your words!"
As for my husband and myself, let's just say opposites attract . . . until they have children.
So when I heard about a parenting therapy group based on the use of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the famed personality test, I was on it. If motherhood is a lifetime job, I figured, maybe an exam whose prominent use is to offer people employment guidance could help me in a way Dr. Spock had not. I signed up for a series of classes offered by Elizabeth Campbell, a former career counselor who now runs MB parenting groups out of her suburban New York home.
Unlike other personality assessment systems, Myers-Briggs emphasizes character strengths, not weaknesses. (You're not an anti-social dweeb, you simply function best with copious amounts of time to yourself.). More than two million people take it annually in settings ranging from church groups to career counseling centers. Almost 90% of the companies in the Fortune 100 are believed to utilize either it or one of its variants (such as the Keirsey Temperament Sorter) for use in everything from hiring decisions to teaching corporate management techniques.
Inspired by Carl Jung's theory of personality, the Myers-Briggs test places takers into one of sixteen behavior profiles, based on answers to questions about how we interact with others (Extroversion and Introversion), prefer to deal with facts or ideas, (Sensing or iNtuition), make decisions based on logic or emotion (Thinking or Feeling) and whether we are orderly or spontaneous in our actions and thought (Judging or Perceiving.) Traits are known by their first letters. Your profile is expressed as a combination of the four: George W. Bush, for example, is widely thought to be either an ESTP or ESTJ.
©2007 Helaine Olen and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Helaine Olen's writing has been published by The New York
Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Salon.com, AlterNet.org and
LiteraryMama.com, where she is an associate editor. Her first book, Office
Mate: The Guide to Finding True Love on the Job will be published this fall. She
lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. |
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