kids' personalities - baffled by mine! Need assistance!

[growler]

Hello - using my moaning pseudonym.cowardly. My 4 year old dd is baffling/irritating me a lot -I've just had a "challenging" day with her in which I did all the things that I really don't like to do ever - ie threaten to slap her, tell her to shut up etc.
I find her quite strange and quite difficult - the feelings she elicits in me are painful, love mixed with all sorts of things that are too hard to say. and I would like to read something enlightening about kids' personality types, but I looked on amazon and I could only find this thing called the enneagram, which sounded a bit aleister crowleyish and not at all my bag. It's just her personality seems to contain so many paradoxes and I am sometimes shocked when the negative bits are so overriding. She's no fool, and I am concerned she is picking up my feelings, which can't do wonders for her self-esteem. I really adore her and want to be her strongest support.

Not sure about specific books on personality types- but there are alot of books about "challenging children". Books like "bringing up a challenging child at home" (think that's it's title) " the out of sync child" (that's about children with various sensory problems- but may be relevant- perhaps look in the library rather than buy). Or the Steve Biddulph books can be quite good for positive parenting. Indigo children (not sure what that's about- although I think it might be over-sensitive children).

Not sure whether these are what you are looking for. Do you mean that your duaghter is challenging or that she just "clashes" with you becuase you're different.

This might sound a bit barking but some homeopathy books are quite good for analysing personalities. There's a good one by Paul Herscu called the homeopathic treatment of children. It describes lots of different personality types.

Hi growler ...
I have recently read an excellent book called 'Of Course I Love You, Now Go To Your Room' by Diane Levy. She has a very interesting couple of chapters on personality types that explained a lot about me, my DH and my DS ....
It also has some excellent strategies on discipline from the 'no smacking, no shouting' approach.
I don't think it is published in the UK ... she is an NZ writer (child psychologist and a bit of a parenting guru in these parts) and much of it relates directly to NZ parents. See if you can find her in Google or possibly australian Amazon ... (I think it is amazon.co.aus) ...
If you can't find it and you would like a copy, I could get one and send it to you .... no bother ...

Thank you you two. I will get both of those books.
To answer your question Ghosty I think the challenge with us lies not in her personality PER SE but in its interaction with mine......off to amazon to try and find these books. THANK YOU!

Ooh!!! The Enneagram... I better not go into details. I had a friend who was into it, and with my cataloging mind I remember much of it. Probably about as reliable as Zodiac signs, which is to say, not reliable at all.