Your Type, Your Parenting Style

Myers-Briggs and Family Dynamics

Your ideas about parenting – what it should be and what it shouldn’t be – began forming when you were a child. A cherished moment with your dad that you looked forward to having with your own son some day, or the teenage declaration of “when I have kids, I’m never doing that,” there were elements of your mom & dad’s parenting that “fit” your expectations and style and some that did not.

Surely not an issue of “good parenting” versus “bad parenting” or of being a “good child” or a “bad child,” many of these style compatibilities and differences are due to your personality “Type” similarities or differences. And for any one who has two or more children, you already know, what may be the perfect approach for one child, will inevitably be the absolute wrong approach for the other child.

How can that be? They were raised in the same home with the same parents, with the same values and teachings, yet they are so very different from each other.

Or perhaps you find one of your children a breeze to parent (the one your spouse is frequently frustrated by?) and the other child, is just a struggle to get through to (yet your spouse gets along with that child fine.) The answer will most likely come down to Type – your personality preferences as defined by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (or MBTI) – starting first with yours, as a parent, but also in the type of your child if you are able to discern it.

Most of us have fantasized that the best relationships are effortless. Whether it be happily-ever-after marriages, friendships that transcend time and space, or a bond between parent and child that supersedes the need to work at it. We'd all like to believe that our most intimate relationships are unconditional, and strong enough to endure any challenge, but the reality that all good relationships require effort.

Somewhere along the line we’re told this about marriage, and although we resist the idea that it actually applies to our marriage, eventually we figure out that marriage is actually work. What’s interesting is that we don’t naturally transfer that recognition of “good relationships are hard work” to our parent/child relationships.

For some, there is an inherent expectation that the parent will be a respected authority and the child will be compliant and obedient. That may work if both parent and child are Sensor/Judgers (SJ temperament) who have a natural bent for traditional roles, authority, obedience, loyalty, duty, etc. but SJs only make up 38% of the population (with even lower odds that both will be SJs), leaving a vast majority of parent’s and children with a natural bent for miscommunication, misunderstandings and conflict.

Although different relationships have very different characteristics and specific needs, there are two basic areas which seem to be critical to the success of all relationships: Expectations and Communication.

What do we expect from ourselves and the other person involved in the relationship? How do we communicate these expectations, and our feelings and opinions to the person in the relationship? And (most importantly) how does our personality Type affect our expectations and methods of communication?

As a parent, knowing your own Type is a good start, but having a knowledge and understanding of the personality preferences of the other people in the home can substantially improve communication, level-set expectations and reduce conflict (see Parenting Pyramid).

For more information about Type and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, visit the Myers-Briggs (MBTI) Resource Central.

“Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.” - Colossians 3:20-21

For more information about Type and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, visit the Myers-Briggs (MBTI) Resource Central.

Stages of Type Development

As children grow and develop, their personalities take shape and the typological preferences that influence their actions and attitudes begin to reveal themselves through observable behaviors.

Ages 2 to 6
For children between the ages of 2 to 6, the “attitudes” of energy flow and outer-world orientation begin to show themselves allowing us to identify 2 out of 4 of the preferences, the first and the last letters of the four letter Type. From observing their behaviors, we can recognize:

Extraverted Perceivers (EP)
Introverted Perceivers (IP)
Extraverted Judgers (EJ)
Introverted Judgers (IJ)

Ages 7 to 12
Between the ages of 7 and 12, the child's auxiliary function is often not exercised enough to be recognized through observed behaviors. The dominant function, determined by their outer-world orientation, is much more obvious. Accordingly, we can identify 3 out of 4 of the personality preferences for children aged 7-12. They are as follows:

Extraverted Sensing (ESP)
Introverted Sensing (ISJ)
Extraverted Intuition (ENP)
Introverted Intuition (INJ)
Extraverted Feelers (EFJ)
Introverted Feelers (IFP)
Extraverted Thinkers (ETJ)
Introverted Thinkers (ITP)

To narrow in on all four preferences for the 7 -12 group, there is an MBTI based assessment called the Murphy-Meisgeier Type Indicator for Children®. The MMTIC is designed for Type assessment up to the age of 18, but since the MBTI is written on a 7th grade level, children 13 and up can typically take the traditional MBTI for assessment.

Ages 13 and Up
By the age 13, a child's baseline personality is fairly set, and we can usually identify which of the sixteen "adult" personality types a teenager fits into through observable behaviors as well.
Adult Type Development
Type development is the life-long process of gaining greater command over the functions of perception and judgment. This implies a greater sense of quality in their use.

Type theory asserts that we each have and use all four of the “functions” (S, N, T and F) but, as driven by our preferences, we use them in a specific and strict order – Dominant, Auxiliary, Tertiary and Inferior. In layman’s terms, we develop our preferred functions first, then our non-preferred functions.

The stages of adult Type Development are:
1. Development of excellence in the favorite, dominant process.
2. Adequate but not equal development of the auxiliary for balance.
3. Use of each of the four functions for tasks for which they are best fitted.

In theory, full type development occurs by the time a person reaches the age of 50 and, although Type is hard-wired and doesn’t change, someone with fully developed preferences and non-preferences can demonstrate behaviors as both S & N and both T & F as needed in any given circumstance.

For more information about Type and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, visit the Myers-Briggs (MBTI) Resource Central.

The Parenting Pyramid

Myers-Briggs and Family Dynamics

Just like the nutritional food pyramid that advocates fruits and vegetables as the foundation of a healthy diet, followed by grains and dairy, and then a sparing consumption of fats and sugars, the balanced “nutrition” of parenting uses a similar pyramid showing where to put your attention for healthy family dynamics and effective parenting.

The foundation to healthy parenting is to first, know yourself. Knowing and understanding your personality preferences through Myers-Briggs is a good start. Being aware of how your preferences influence how you parent will help you be more aware of alternative styles and approaches when conflict arises.

Knowing and understanding the personality Type of your spouse and children can greatly enhance the communication and help establish clear and reasonable expectation within the family dynamics.

Ultimately, the more you know and understand yourself and the other members of the family and what motivates the actions they take and the decisions they make, the easier it is to anticipate behavior, adjust the communication style to turn a potential problem into a “teachable moment” and reduce the volume of correction, discipline and punishment needed.

Parents are freed up to focus on connecting with and loving their kids in a way that resonates with their Type. Learning how to communicate and adapt to each other’s needs and styles will replace the volume of time spent on conflicts and arguments. Discipline will get the least of the family time and attention.

“Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching. They will be a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck.” - Proverbs 1:8-9

Out of the Mouths of Babes

…and into the fiery pits of Hell.

At some point in my life (not soon, I imagine) my time in this world will be over and I will head home to be with my heavenly father. I have frequently imagined (start humming MercyMe here) what this might be like - knowing that my limited mortal brain cannot begin to conceive of its glory (but I’m sure chocolate is involved). All my mental pictures were recently replaced by a less pleasant scenario…

I arrive at the gates of heaven to be greeted by Jesus, a few choice angels and God Himself who is holding a DVD of my life in His hands. He pops it in the DVD player, but there’s really no point in watching it all, I lived it and He wrote it. We both know what’s on there – so just skip to the good stuff: The Blooper Tracks.

As He scrolls through Bonus Features to find the Blooper of choice and hits the play button, I look around to the ground below me to see if I’m standing on a trap door that leads straight to Hell, but attention is drawn back up to Jesus who is laughing so hard tears are running down His cheeks as we watched the clip below.

Yes, yes. I’m the parent who was out SHOPPING while my 12-year-old son sat in the front row as a shining example for Pastor Stokes as the future of the church. As I wrestled past the mortification (the horror, oh the horror) right through justification (I tithe, I serve, I’m there every Wednesday, do I really have to be at all 3 weekend services?) take a pit stop at guilt (what kind of message am I sending the kids, they’re here for all 3 weekend services, what a horrible model for them, I should be doing more) I was finally able to appreciate the humor.

My friend Tracey Dowdey (who is a pastor’s wife and has surely heard it all) said it was truly one of her favorite church moments of all time. Tracey’s words often make me feel all warm inside, but I'm afraid the flush of heat I feel is from the pits of hell this time.

Or perhaps those flames warming me from below are from the parent-sin-pride from hearing Pastor Stokes say such lovely things about my youngest angel and his heart for the Lord (yeah, yeah - if I hadn't been out shopping, I could have heard it all first hand instead of having several of my brothers and sisters in Christ call me after that service to tell me all about it and send me links to the webcast so I can watch it over and over again).

Thank God I’m saved, ‘cause I’m sure not perfect!

Faith Deficit Disorder – Our Teens at Risk

This afternoon I got my Christian Counseling Today magazine in the mail and was immediately drawn to an article by Josh McDowell called “The Crisis of Belief - What Teens Believe.” As the mother of two teenage boys myself, teen-faith issues are near and dear to my heart. I count myself blessed that both my boys are (little) men of God, actively serving in ministries at Fair Oaks Church but I’m not so naïve to think that can’t change and it shouldn’t be taken for granted.

Kids really have so much more of the world to resist than we did at their age. Yeah, yeah… sex, drugs, violence, pornography all existed when we were their age – this is nothing new – but the ease of access and prevalence is just frightening.

“While we need to be aware of what our children could be tempted to do, we need to be more concerned with what they are tempted to believe.”

So true! As a Christian parent you think you’re doing a good job and covering all the bases until a 4th-grade teacher unravels what you thought was a firm understanding and belief in Creation with her day’s science lesson. Some day I’ll write a blog called “Deconstructing Darwin” about my journey of equipping the boys with the Truth. It paid off a few years later when my oldest stood up in his 7th grade science class and told the teacher that Darwin was wrong and proceeded to give her and the class a lesson on the science of Creationism. No threat of expulsion could kill that proud-parent buzz!

The reality, though, is that Darwin (and other evil influences) are around every corner, waiting to whisper their lies into our kids’ ears. Worse yet, what about the ones who don’t know the Truth, have never heard the Word, walking alone in the world with nothing to compete with the Devil’s whisper? Check out some of these statistics from the article:

Studies reveal that young people who lack a basic biblical belief system are:
• 36% more likely to lie to a friend;
• 48% more likely to cheat on a exam;
• 200% more likely to steal;
• 200% more likely to physically hurt someone;
• 300% more likely to use illegal drugs;
• 600% more likely to attempt suicide.

The article goes on to talk about the three ways our teens’ beliefs become distorted: adopting distorted beliefs about God, embracing distorted beliefs about Truth, and accepting distorted Beliefs about reality.

Not surprising to any parent of a teenager, today’s teens have a tendency to just make up their own belief systems and promote them to others as reality… and those “others” accept it as fact without question.

The Barna “Third Millennium Teens” research found that 82% of teens surveyed identified themselves as Christians, 70% reported being in some kind of church youth group, 80% believed God created the universe, and 84% believed God was personally involved in people’s lives.

That’s good, right? Worthy of a praise God! But somewhere there’s a disconnect with the application of those beliefs. Of the same survey group:
• 63% believed that Muslims, Buddhists, Christians and Jews are all praying to the same god;
• 46% believed Jesus committed sins while he was on the earth;
• 51% did not believe Jesus rose from the dead after the crucifixion;
• 48% didn’t believe it mattered what religious faith you practiced because they are all essentially the same;
• 58% believe that all religious faiths teach equally valid truths.

WOW! Reading that made me immediately appreciate the strong faith my boys have and (not to minimize the hard work Mom & Dad have done to get them there) how blessed we are that our church prioritizes youth ministries and recognizes that these kids are our future ministry leaders.

But let’s not lose sight of those teens out side our immediate reach – scripting their own belief systems - who need to be reached so they can hear the Truth and know the difference when they hear the devil’s whisper. Let us all start with a prayer (it’s the least we can do) but we need to be deliberate and active in recognizing opportunities to whisper louder (or shout) into the heart and faith of a teen with distorted beliefs.

By the way, Josh McDowell has some great resources for teens on his website … you can also follow him on Twitter: http://twitter.com/josh_mcdowell