Customer Reviews

The Developing Child: Using Jungian Type to Understand Children

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This book explains the individual preference in a very concise and easy to understand format. Through its explanation, one can see why children behave differently. It offers tips on how to help children grow in a more balanced way so that they can enjoy the strength of their preferences and minimize the impact of the weakness from their preference by learning effective coping skills.

I found this book an easy read with many examples from daily life. The chapters were not too long, which made it easy to read one and think about the ideas presented. Mrs. Murphy's provides the reader with advice and help to parents and students themselves in helping to appreciate and understand one another. The first chapter is essential in understanding Mrs. Murphy's approach in using the type-theory.

She has great insight into the personality. I especially found her examples helpful in explaining the types and their behaviors. If someone is looking for a book to understand theirselves, their children, thier students, or even their spouse, this book is worth the buy.

One more thing. This book is for parents, educators, or anyone trying to grasp the concepts of the MBTI. Since I have read it many times, I have a clearer understanding of personality types.

Elizabeth Murphy, Ed.D., is a licensed psychologist and creator of the Murphy-Meisgeier Type Indicator for Children, a tool used to identify Jungian type preferences in children. Essentially, the author goes through each of the attitudes and functions and discusses how type preferences come into play in home & school environments. She also shares examples of conflict or challenges that may arise when a parent or teacher fails to take into account the child's preference.

This provides a good analysis overall of type in children and more importantly, provides plenty of easy-to-follow examples. For example, it explains why a child with a thinking preference asks "Why?" -- and why "because I said so; that's why" is an ineffective answer. She explains why thinking children may say things that feeling parents would interpret as rude or insensitive, and how they can fail to understand why they are being scolded. She shares examples of how to introduce and introverted child and an extraverted child to a new school.

Although the author provides home & school applications, the examples are definitely skewed toward the school setting, and even many of the home applications involve school-related topics. I sense that this book is directed more toward teachers than toward parents, but there is certainly good guidance for both.

Another book on this topic that may be easier for parents is Nurture by Nature: How to Raise Happy, Healthy, Responsible Children Through the Insights of Personality Type