Parenting to Personality Type – I keep learning

I use Myers-Briggs Type Indicator as a tool in my work and make every effort to apply the insights to my parenting and marriage.  Every once in a while I recognize something that suddenly makes sense of a situation – giving me a fuller perspective.  Here’s a recent example.

I played a new card game with our two sons (Camelot Legends).  It was a game where each card has a great deal of detail that influences how and when it is played.  Since we were learning the game I was intent on getting through the first session – picking up the major points and understanding the rules before we focused on all of the details.  Besides which it was getting late and so we didn’t have a lot of time to play.

One son, like me, has an intuiting preference– big picture, global thinker, creative, future oriented.  The other son has a sensing preference – he is drawn to the details, getting things right, accuracy, learning new things through connections to his past.

As I was trying to push the game along – “Let’s just get the big picture, understand the basic rules, and have the experience before we play it again and focus on all of the details” – my sensing son wanted to quit.

Later, it dawned on me that I was creating a situation that supported my intuiting preferences, an approach that was not supportive of my son’s sensing preferences.  One of my principles is: “We make virtues of our preferences.”  I was learning the game the way that was most comfortable to me and was frustrated with my son’s resistance.

I asked my son if in the future it would be a better experience if he could spend time beforehand reading each card, familiarizing himself with the details, and he said it would be.

So it is easy for me to criticize his desire to quit without realizing that, for him, I created an environment in which quitting is preferable to having an experience that runs so counter to his preferences.

As we mature we learn to endure unpleasant situations, but with our children we must be careful not to expect maturity where it is still evolving.

I’m still learning.  For me, at least, understanding is easier than consistent application.

Technorati Tags: myers briggs type indicator,intuiter,senser,camelot legends,parenting,marriage,perspective,maturity,preference