Appreciating Differences - Jack Falt - Ottawa area, Ontario, Canada

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Book Review by Jack Falt

Stoop, David, Understanding Your Child's Personality: Discover Your Child's Unique Personality Type, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL, ISBN 0-8423-7632-1, 202 pp

This short book review was written for the Ontario Association for the Application of Personality Type newsletter Tell~A~Type, Spring 1999.

This book uses the concepts of preferences to describe children. It is more a Temperament book that an Jung/Myers theory book. Dr. Stoop begins by describing eight types of children and then moves on to look at the eight Jung/Myers theory preferences. It is only later that we learn that the eight types he uses are the Extraverted and Introverted forms of the four Temperaments. (Unlike Keirsey, who divides Temperaments using Thinking-Feeling for the SP and SJ Temperaments, and Judging-Perceiving for the NF and NT Temperaments.)

After helping the parent determine the child's preferences, Dr. Stoop does not describe each type (as does the Tiegers in Nurture by Nature), but describes the four Temperaments of children.

Dr. Stoop is a clinical psychologist and he also is an Associate Professor at Fuller Theological Seminary. In a closing chapter he looks at Helping Your Child Develop a Faith in God. This has some good ideas although it may be rather fundamentalist for some.

The final chapter is in a question and answer format that answers several questions that parents might have.

This is a worthwhile book that would be helpful to parents. Other than in the chapter on developing faith, there is little reference to religion so for even those who are not religiously inclined they would find this a worthwhile book.

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