I have to say I have used the MBTI info a LOT in dealing with my teenagers- and it's been
extremely helpful. I first learned about it 5 or 6 years ago, and it truely has helped me through the worst of the teen years of my 3 kids.
I've been worried about my youngest daughter from the time she was about 3 or 4. She was a beautiful baby and small child, and showed every indication of turing in a beautiful, self-absorbed, shallow and vain woman. I worried about this. She lied easily, and I tried SO hard to get her to see that it was wrong, wrong, WRONG. I was trying very hard to get her to act the way I did as a child, considerate, kind, shy and sensitive- but it just wasn't working. By the time she was around 9 I was despairing until a psych grad studen temp who worked for me one summer introduced me to the Kiersey personality tests.
It was a complete and utter eye-opener. My youngest daughter is an ESFP, a natural born bimbo.
They love the excitement of playing to an audience, and they try to generate a sense of "showtime" wherever they are. Performers are not comfortable being alone most of the time, and seek the company of others whenever possible -- which they usually find, for they make wonderful playmates. Lively, witty conversationalists, Performers always seem to know the latest jokes and stories, and are quick with wisecracks and wordplay -- nothing is so serious or sacred that it can't be made fun of. Performers also like to live in the fast lane of society, and seem up on latest fads of dress, food, drink, and entertainment, the chic new fashion, the "in" nightclub, the "hot" new musical group. Energetic and uninhibited, Performers create a mood of "eat, drink, and be merry" wherever they go, and life around them can have a continual party-like atmosphere.
Now I knew why she was so clingy, why she never wanted to be alone, why she always wanted attention from
someone- whereas my older children never needed that.
After I got over the shock of realizing that my daughter was a cheerleader type (the sort I'd loathed in high school!) I started working
with her personality type rather than trying to pound the square peg into the round hole. I started hugging her more, and making a point of talking to her when she didn't have friends to talk to. I am able to explain to my husband why she does what she does and the best way to push her buttons so that she acts the way we want her to.
From what I've seen of other online people talking about ESFPs, they are very prone to make a complete mess of their lives- with addictions of one sort or another being a major pitfall for them. I feel like we are walking through a minefield with her, and one wrong step cause her to jump into the drug, sex and alcohol life that she talks about her other 15 year old friends doing.
So far, she's refrained. She's actually being a "good girl", and is rather proud of it. Somehow, we are walking the thin and narrow path to a decent adulthood- and she just may stick with it. I literally owe it all to the MBTI insights. If I had continued trying to scorn her love of clothes and makeup, and other girly things, I'd have alienated her beyond recovery. If I hadn't been able to convince my husband to treat her with affection rather than harshness, we might have lost her.
Neither I nor my husband were really capable of seeing what she needed from us without the insights of the Kiersey book.
My other kids were easier, although I got some good help for them, too. My oldest daughter is an INFJ, and naturally *good*. We used to get into some terrible, terrible fights before I read the section on her type, and found that they HATE being reminded to be good, because they were going to do it anyway, it's in their nature. I learned to explain my rules to her in the form of, "Well, I need to set this rule so I'll feel like a good parent" rather than how the rule was to make her be *good*. She wasl already like that, and didn't need reminding.
My son is an INTJ, and the main thing I learned about his type is that his geekiness isn't something to fight against. It's OK that he's not interested in sports at all, and that he's about to enter his last year of high school and has never, ever mentioned interest in a girl yet. INTJs are late bloomers, romance-wise. We let him do his thing, computer-wise, and he helps us with the farm chores without complaint and is really a very *good* kid. Without the MBTI knowledge, we would have worried that he wasn't getting enough socialization growing up, and thought that it was unhealthy for him not to want to play team sports. As it is, he's developing nicely, with no emotional problems that we can see. But then my husband and I are geeks, too!
Finding and reading about my husband's type was also an interesting relevation. He's an ISTP, a hands-on mechanically oriented type, and his motivations for projects is completely different than mine. When I do physical work, it's all goal oriented to me. I am doing the work because of the benefit to me and my family that I will get when done. He literally does physical work because he enjoys it!
This was an important relevation to me, because he used to get so wrapped up in doing a home improvement project that he kept working until his muscles went into spasm and he'd be incapacitated for the rest of the day. After I showed him his type, he started learning to pace himself better, and stop before exhaustion went too far.
Now I understand that when we plan some kind of work for the weekend, it's not just that we are doing it because it needs to be done- but because he NEEDS something to do.
When he came down with Lyme disease two years ago, it was particularly devastating to his psyche, because he couldn't lose himself in the rhythem of physical work in his free time. I would have been very confused at his frustration with his weakness and illness if I hadn't known what what motivates him.... and keep in mind, we'd been married 17 years before I learned of MBTI and all that. Learning what makes him tick has been extremely helpful in interpreting what's really behind his behaviour under stress, and helps me help him cope with it.
MBTI info has really, really helped me in dealing with my family, and has helped me understand myself better, too.