Parenting the Personality

Wow, it’s been way too long since my last post. My new radio show is taking up much of the time I would use for writing. I’ve got a couple of posts in the works but in the meantime…

Today’s post is a guest reblog excerpt from this week’s guest on Live the Live Radio.

Myers-Briggs Personality Theory, phase four: a different 4 Groups
(Based on Dominant Processes)
By Amy Jane Helmricks

Young children can be divided into four groups, just as adults can, but because their types are still developing the groups are designated only by dominant process: N, S, F or T.

Children whose dominant process is N tend to be very imaginative, seeing possibilities, thinking of the future, frequently storytellers and often lost in their own world. They can be very focused on things others don’t notice, and still miss the obvious. These are the kids who genuinely don’t notice they’re stepping on the only book left on the floor.

Children whose dominant process is S tend to be very grounded and practical children. Their wants and delights are physical: bright colors or quiet spaces, building towers and watching how they fall. Their distractions and distresses, also lean to the physical: the cold, a stickiness, or stone in the shoe. They have a high attentiveness to the information gathered through their senses: tastes, textures, sounds sights and smells.

Children whose dominant process is F tend to be very aware relationally, either with regards to how their behavior affects others, or how others’ behavior affects them. Compassion, people-pleasing and cries of unfair are all things that seem to show up “early” in these children.

Children whose dominant process is T tend to be very confident. They know what they want and frequently how to get it. They value competency, proof, and proving themselves. They are often more interested in things than people, and can seem mature for their age, based on their lower emotional volatility.

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Unless we’ve trained ourselves differently, we tend to view differences as a threat. After all, they’re making a different decision. They must think my way is wrong, and where do they get off…?

It is frequently helpful to consider how many different “right ways” can exist.

There is a delightfully maddening story in the book All Creatures Great and Small where the author’s eccentric boss hires a secretary to manage the veterinary business’s records and billing.

When this tough, no-nonsense lady comes in, she nearly has a fit when she sees the way money is currently kept: spilling out of a pot on the mantle. She works everything into order, but the boss eventually takes her to task about how her cash box is no good when it doesn’t contain cash.

Ultimately, I think letting people be different is granting them their own dignity. A chance to fail on their own terms. Because at the same time you are giving them the latitude to succeed in a way you might never choose to try.

Some things we might scold a child for, or try to “train” out of him or her, can be early manifestations of preferences that truly are values-neutral. Just because they aren’t choices we’d make doesn’t (by itself) make them bad.

For example:

Read the rest of the blog here.

Also in this article:
Ideas for S-oriented children
Ideas for N-oriented children
Ideas for F-oriented children
Ideas for T-oriented children