Episode 9

Sandra & Em discuss how to tell if your child prefers Thinking or Feeling in the Myers-Briggs personality type model.

Our topic of the day covers:

• How to identify the Thinking vs. Feeling preference pair in Myers Briggs in kids
  • This is how your children prefer to make decisions
  • Helpful to understand how to discipline/guide them
• Interview with a Feeling (ESFJ) 8 year old girl
• Interview with a Thinking (INTJ) 7 year old boy 

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To do personality type work with Sandra E-mail her at Sandra@FamilyPersonalities.com or check out more on her website: www.familypersonalities.com

Full show notes:

What’s new with Sandra & Em

Em and Sandra talk about their apprehension at doing too much with things slowly opening back up after the stay at home orders. Sandra’s parents came for a visit for the first time in a long time and Em expresses her envy at the time they will get with having babysitters for the kids. June (Em’s daughter) chimes in on the discussion too!

Topic of the Day: How do your children prefer to make decisions – the Thinking vs. Feeling preference in Myers-Briggs 

• Thinking vs Feeling:
  • Listen to Episode 2 for a discussion on handedness and how it compares to Myers-Briggs preference
  • How you prefer to make decisions
  • Thinking: step out of the situation, considering only objective logical data 
  • Feeling: step into the situation, considering the feelings/values of self and others
  • We all can do both of these things, but one of them feels more comfortable and natural to us. Sandra compares this to signing your name with your preferred hand.

• Thinking kids:
  • Most convinced by logic
    • Sandra uses her son as an example, that he’s not likely to do something just because she told him it will make someone else happy. He needs to hear the logical reasons of why he should do it.
  • Objective and analytical, don’t take things personally
  • Want fairness and justice
  • Express themselves directly, with honest and clarity 
  • Want to be praised for their independence and achievements
  • Place a high value on competence
  • Hold themselves and others to consistent standards
  • May hurt others’ feelings with their bluntness
    • Sandra says all kids will do this while they’re learning how to navigate the world of feelings, but that Thinking kids will do this more than a Feeling kids, partly because they value honesty and partly because it’s harder for them to understand what is hurtful to say and what is not
  • May be argumentative or enjoy debate 
    • Sandra says they call her son “the negotiator” because everything is up for debate with him
• Sandra says that although in their real life examples on the show so far the females are Feelers and the males are Thinkers, in actuality the breakdown is about 60/40. 60% of males are Thinkers / 40% are Feelers. And for females 60% are Feelers and 40% are Thinkers.

• Feeling kids:
  • Most convinced by how they or others feel
  • Sensitive and empathetic; take most things personally
    • Sandra and Em both note that their daughters are focused on the emotions when they’re upset where Sandra’s son is more about the logic and circumstances about what is making him upset
  • Want harmony and affection
  • Express themselves with warmth and tact
  • Want to be praised for their personal contribution and cooperative spirit
  • Accept extenuating circumstances and exceptions to the rule
    • Sandra uses the example of bedtime at their house. Ryker (a Thinker) had a hard time understanding why his sister got to stay up later then him even though she took long naps during the day
  • Place a high value on relationships
  • Enjoy/need a lot of physical and verbal affection
    • Em and Sandra both need words of affirmation too 🙂
    • They talk about their Love Languages and whether words of affirmation is up there on their list
  • May be adversely affected by tension between adults or others in the room
  • Sensitive to criticism/feedback/discipline

• Sandra Interviews our Feeler: Avery, an 8 year old ESFJ
  • After the interview, Em comments that she’s very polite and well-mannered and that she sees things outside of herself
    • “When we have fights they can lead to war” – The things she said weren’t about how they affected her but about how they affected other people
  • Sandra says Avery answered every question as a Feeler
  • Sandra points out that there were other things outside of the questions that demonstrated her Feeling preference as well, such as commenting on what a good job her teachers are doing and how at the end she told Sandra “thank you for interviewing me”

• Sandra Interviews our Thinker: Ryker, a 7 year old INTJ (and also Sandra’s son)
  • Sandra prefaces the interview that Ryker actually answered a lot of the questions the same way Avery did 
  • After the interview Em says she doesn’t think Ryker sounds like a Feeler at all. She attributes his answering the questions in a Feeling way to being raised with traditional Judeo-Christian values
  • Sandra says that because her own values are about being kind to others, she has worked a lot on that with Ryker. She also speculates that Ryker knows what she wants to hear and that may have played a role in the way he answered the questions
  • Em says when he said he likes to work alone, that pointed toward Thinking. And that Avery expanded upon her Feeling answers whereas Ryker just answered quickly and to the point. 
  • Sandra says a lot of Thinkers will say they want to work alone because doing well on the assignment is more important to them than working with others. However, sometimes an Extravert who is a Thinker might prefer to work with people
  • Sandra points out Ryker’s blunt language about how when he and his sister are arguing over what movie to watch when he said “it gets annoying so I just stop”
  • Sandra talks about how social niceties such as saying thank you are so hard for Ryker, which is partly Introversion but also Thinking
  • Ryker has been known to point out that he doesn’t get his feelings hurt as easily as his friends
  • Em says not just the substance of Ryker’s answers but also they way he communicates his answers very directly points to Thinker for him
  • Sandra says Ryker’s interview is a good example of why you can’t rely on an online quiz or black and white questions in a conversation to determine someone’s Myers-Briggs personality type

Action / Challenge: Observe your child(ren). Do you think they predominantly make their decisions using Thinking or Feeling? 

E-mail Call-out: Do you have a child who is obviously one or the other? What does that look like for them?
familypersonalitiespod@gmail.com