The Enneagram of Parenting: The 9 Types of Children and How to Raise Them Successfully

by Elizabeth Wagele

Elizabeth Wagele, coauthor of The Enneagram Made Easy and Are You My Type, Am I Yours?, offers the first practical guidebook for parents -- packed with her delightful cartoons -- on how the Enneagram can help to understand and work with children's personality traits and behavioral patterns more effectively and creatively. Using her expertise in making the Enneagram accessible through simple text and zany, informative cartoons, Wagele shows parents how to be flexible and compassionate, willing and eager to recognize the unique potential of every child and to respond to and nurture each child appropriately.

Genres: Parenting, Nonfiction, Psychology, Self Help, Mental Health

166 pages, Paperback

First published January 30, 1997

About the author

Elizabeth Wagele was an American artist, musician, and author best known for her engaging and accessible works on the Enneagram of Personality and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Raised in Salt Lake City before moving to Berkeley at age 10, she was drawn to creative expression early in life, spending her time drawing, playing piano, and inventing stories. A talented pianist and composer, she studied under Bernhard Abramowitsch and Andrew Imbrie, graduating cum laude from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1961. Music remained a central part of her life, both personally and professionally.
Wagele began writing books in her mid-fifties, often infusing humor and self-drawn cartoons into her work. Her 1994 collaboration with Renee Baron, The Enneagram Made Easy, became a bestseller and was translated into 17 languages. She continued to explore the Enneagram through various lenses, including parenting (The Enneagram of Parenting), relationships (Are You My Type, Am I Yours?), and even the experience of grief (The Enneagram of Death). A champion of introversion, she authored The Happy Introvert, blending psychological insight with personal reflection.
Beyond writing, Wagele produced music CDs like The Beethoven Enneagram and Enneagram Variations, where she interpreted personality types through musical performance. Her multidisciplinary approach brought psychological concepts to life in a uniquely creative and compassionate voice. She passed away in 2017 in Berkeley, leaving behind a legacy of warmth, insight, and wit through her books, music, and art.

Reviews

[Lisa]

This is a fun book for anyone who is familiar with the enneagram. It is full of illustrations which makes it a quick and easy to read. There are some general questions for each type to help you guess what your child's personality type is. I recommend learning about the enneagram for your own growth as well as getting a better understanding of the other significant people in your life. But then again, I'm a Five and I love knowledge! =)

[Iman Binagh Dirige]

Truly enjoyed this sweet & simple book on application of enneagram towards parenting children - as an optimistic 9w1 with FiNeSiTe cognitive functions happily married to a benevolent 8w9 with TeNiSeFi cognitive functions, it was neat to understand the ever-changing style of personality of our own two young beautiful beings.🌻

Proudly raising a brilliant and kind 2w3 styled four year old daughter with FeNiSeTi cognitive functions & joyful and inquisitive 5w6 styled three year old son with NeTiFeSi cognitive functions - the love of my life and I are looking forward to learning their true personalities as our children develop and grow with age, but we both love honoring who they presently are within this beautiful world.🌻

Mommy Elephant & Mama Elephant deeply love their two beautiful baby elephants. Recommended read for fellow adoring parents.🌻

Goodreads review shared publicly December 5th 2019 - coincides with our Pinterest vision boards for our humble Dirige Ohana.🌻🌺🍀🌸🌵

[Sarah Wilson]

Super cute, helpful, engaging, and easy to read. Clearly laid out and very understandable. Made it clear that kids will operate under different enneagram types throughout childhood and why that is. Gave me lots of food for thought on how to work better with my own kids and observing more of what might be going on inside their minds. Highly recommend and so glad to have it as a resource. Definitely one to reread (or at least re-skim) from time to time.

[Loraena]

I liked the simple descriptions and questions about each type really zoomed out to show the big picture in a way I found helpful.

I put Enneagram into the same category of usefulness as Myers-Briggs, Strengthfinder, and other similar tests. Not helpful when used to label, stereotype, or otherwise and dehumanize one another (an excuse to be unloving towards those we perceive as different from ourselves), but if used in a thoughtful way that respects the humanity and affirms the imago Dei of each person's unique combination of strengths/weaknesses/gifting, it can be very helpful as an aid to understanding and communicate effectively with others. It can also help us identify our own gifts. Ultimately, anytime I am discussing or studying issues of personality & gifting, I love to remember David Powlison's wise words, "We are all more alike than we are different."

[Leigh Kramer]

Fantastic resource for anyone with children in their life, whether or not they're a parent. I'm glad the emphasis is on children containing qualities of a type, instead of typing children. Their personalities can change so much! Still, there's concrete information and practical applications that will be helpful.

[Pamela Hubbard]

This definitely gave me some insights into my work with kids and helped me to see things from their perspective, but it felt a little too generalized. I would have loved to see more focus on us as parents and how our numbers impact our parenting.

[Lindsay]

I come back to this book time and again. Immensely helpful.

[Book friends are my best friends]

I can't say that this book was all I wanted it to be, but it did do its job. I was able to easily identify my children's enneagrams!

[Emily]

I really enjoyed this book. I love personality typing and the enneagram, but assumed that I wouldn't really be able to use it with my children since a person's type doesn't solidify until adulthood. Wagele gets around that by explaining that your children may be acting in a certain type as a child and then later change (so it's helpful to notice what traits they're exhibiting, but not to box them into a type too early).

I wouldn't recommend this as an introductory enneagram book because I just don't think it has enough information. You really need to already have a basic understanding of the enneagram before reading it.

The lack of information is one of my main complaints about the book. It's a short, easy read, which I know a lot of people like, but I thought it barely scratched the surface of the topic. I wanted a lot more discussion of each type and how you can deal with challenges in each specific child.

The last chapter was frustrating because Wagele just started talking about various parenting challenges that had nothing to do with the enneagram. I guess she thought they were important--and they are; but in a way, that actually made it worse that she seemed to be trying major problems in three paragraphs each. If a parent has problems with a teenager and an eating disorder, they need to be reading a book JUST about that, not this book (and speaking with professionals, etc). Other recommendations for smaller problems seemed exasperatingly obvious. Wagele should have maximized the space she had and stayed in her lane.

However, the parts that were actually about the enneagram were very informative and fun to read.

[Meagan]

This book is interesting enough. There are illustrations in every chapter and it makes for a pretty quick read. The author refers to the 9 numbers/types as “styles” in children, acknowledging that their type may change as they develop and grow. After an introduction, she devotes one chapter to each number, and addresses particular topics. What follows are 3-4 quotes about child-rearing, written from the perspective of each number. It also includes a brief paragraph about basic tendencies of each number as a parent, so it would seem helpful to know your own number before reading. The book concludes with a section called “20 Additional Problem Areas.” This is not so much connected to the Enneagram, as it is general parenting/child-rearing advice written from a seemingly mindfulness parenting perspective. Perhaps I missed something, but this didn’t directly connect to the rest of the book. I imagine it might be helpful for some readers nonetheless. I read this in one day, don’t regret it, but it’s not one I would immediately recommend.

[Josiah Sanchez]

As a former teacher (and former child), I picked up this book to see what the enneagram can do for children: children who have unique needs, changing interests, and undefined personality potential. This book is light and easy with cartoons and short blips of text, but it still has quite a bit of useful information. It discusses how the different enneagram styles (not types since types are settled at age 25) react to bed times, meals, new friends, school, etc. It was quite eye opening to reflect on how my siblings and students morphed through out my experience touching on different enneagram numbers as they grew. I also saw how I moved through the different numbers in my childhood before settling as a 1w2 in adulthood.

I plan to pass along this book to my friends who are new parents, because it’s just that good!

[Matthew]

I had seen this book recommended by other enneagram authors and was intrigued because you often hear warnings about typing kids. This book handles the topic really well; it makes it clear that the heart of the book is to find ways to let your child develop as they will. It is not meant to put your kid in a box, in fact it is quite the opposite, learning to recognize where your parenting defaults might not be in line with the personality your child is developing. I found this book approachable, well thought out, and extremely practical. The majority of this book is about handling specific parent-child dynamics like getting school on time, bedtime routine, eating meals together, etc.

[Aaron]

Much too generalized to be of much use to anyone who already has a working knowledge of the Enneagram. By the same token it felt as if there were far too many blanket cliches and stereotypes here to provide clear guidance for newcomers. The illustrations felt a bit like amateur comic strips with jokes that don't land. And the general parenting advice at the end of the book was unrelated to the Enneagram and felt very rushed and biased. This book could actually be quite damaging for some readers and should not be used as a serious parenting or personality typing guide.

[Sarah]

I appreciate the way that this book addresses that you cannot type another person and that children are too young to identify their own types. It gives a questionnaire for each type then says, “… your child is currently behaving in the (insert number) style. You can’t tell whether a (insert number)-ish child will remain this way as an adult.” It has good, basic information about how children may feel based on each type, and a few tips to help parents relate to them. There’s not much depth and the cartoons aren’t great, but it’s overall a good starter book.

[Mandie]

This is the only enneagram parenting book I have read; however, there are much better books out there on the enneagram than this. While I appreciated the cartoons (some were really great, others left me wondering if I had missed a joke somewhere), I didn’t understand the addition of the chapter on parenting at the end. It seemed outdated to read in 2018, but also misplaced. Why is this book giving me general parenting advice that has little to nothing to do with the enneagram?

[barbara]

Great resource for parents or anyone who works or is around kids often. The emphasis isn't on typing your kids, but rather looking at the qualities your child holds of each (or certain) types. Very helpful in understanding my kids in certain situations where I really cannot begin to imagine how/why they are feeling what they are feeling. Will definitely be one I pick up from time to time, reread and absorb a lot over the coming years as my kids grow.

[Sheresa]

For me, it was just OK. It might have been more useful for a person who did not know anything about the enneagram headed into it. If you’re pretty knowledgeable about the enneagram already, most of this will seem pretty intuitive. Also, sometimes I felt like it was written for five-year-olds. But I’m not really sure why a five-year-old would need a book about parenting. It did have some good tips though. Insights into parenting kids with different personalities well, in various situations.

[Nancy]

A brief and simplified look at parenting using the enneagram. There is some very general non-enneagram parenting along with a few points specific for children of each type but it is not a deep dive nor does it cover any new territory. The section on how grown children perceived different types as parent figures is quite interesting and the cartoon illustrations are mostly fun although some are puzzling & not integrated for the reader.

[Denise]

An easy overview of how kids may show characteristics of the enneagram types. I enjoyed her emphasis on not typing a child but using their current leanings to help parent them. If you are extremely versed in Enneagram, this may be less helpful as it just scratches the surface of what each type means.

[Susan]

This book was like a kindle version of an online quiz that takes way too long. While I did kind of enjoy figuring out what "types" my son and I are, the number of typos and repetitive sentences written, the poor doodles for illustrations, and the overall vague sense of "this is stupid" that I couldn't shake makes this book a hard pass. Only 1 star.

[Kristi Veis]

This was a quick read and informative. I love how it was about styles of children versus categorizing them as certain types. I totally related to the Enneagram 3 as a child and now as an adult. It's very informative and helpful for me to try and read my children more and be intentional about communicating with them through their style.

[Kelly McCord]

This book was . . . nice? As a person who has a intermediate knowledge of this enneagram, this gave me a few hints and tricks for my children. And the drawings were clever.

However, it didn't feel very well researched in comparison to other enneagram books that I have read. And honestly the "examples" felt made-up and just kind of tossed in occasionally.

[pne]

i love this cutesy book. very easy to read. diagrams and illustrations make it so easy to grasp the basic ideas of raising kids who are different than parents without blaming anyone or expecting anything that puts pressure on the children. really enjoyed what i learned in this book, especially the fact that people are different. it brought acceptance for me, and more empathy for others. which are essential in today’s climate where we are demanded of optimization, profits-making, self-improvement while we tend to judge others more with pop psychology floating around.

[James]

Enneagram Made Easy was the better book of the two. This has some helpful insights for honoring kids' unique personality, with some type-specific advice for nurturing your child's wellbeing. However it is a bit vague.

[Ruthann]

It’s a bit too cheesy for me. Lots of cartoon drawings and over simplified examples. I wish it were written to adults and not kids- just because it’s regarding kids doesn’t mean it needs to be written in kid style.

[Marty Troyer]

Very helpful.
I'm quite familiar with the Enneagram, so this book wasn't an intro to the concept.

But it was very helpful in clarifying my kids' three personalities and how to raise them well.

Highly recommend.

[Andrea]

Interesting breakdown

Interesting breakdown of how each of the 9 types manifest in children. Didn’t find the general parenting guidance at the end particularly helpful as it wasn’t a new way of thinking about the information.

[Mia]

This book is short and has strange illustrations throughout it but the information shared in it is interesting. I don’t think I understand enneagram personalities enough to see bits of them in my kids, but it’s a short read. I still got some good info out of it.

[Karla Osorno]

Like the questions at beginning of each chapter. The visuals and dialogue were incredibly helpful. Some of the parenting advice was over the top in delivery for me.

[Jody]

Could probably use a re-read. Lots to think about!