The key to understanding parent-child relationships for INFJs
The name of the course is, Be Your Real Self Without Feeling Frustrated. It includes four days of on-demand video sessions and email-based course materials. Sign up now.
My driver, Carla, is an INFJ. I probably spend more time with her than I do with anyone else, so I focused really hard on being an expert on her type because the best way to get along with someone – an adult or a child – is to understand their type.
INFJs are complicated. They are creative and giving but it takes them awhile to trust someone enough to show themselves. Also, most of an INFJs life happens inside their head, so you have to have patience to let them process that way.
A great example of this is when Carla took care of my garden for a month when I was traveling. She’s an expert at peonies, but she didn’t tell me until later. After she had made the peony bed phenomenal and pointed out that I bought three rare peonies and didn’t even know it. She said she didn’t tell me at first because I wouldn’t have cared. And you know what? She’s right.
That’s another thing: INFJs are always right about people.
I know a lot about INFJs, but I love learning more, so I did some random googling and I read something a teacher said to an INFJ first-grader: “People have been trying to figure out the meaning of life for centuries, so you are not going to figure it out right now. Give yourself a break. Have some fun. You can think about the meaning of life when you’re older.”
The problem with that is thinking of the meaning of life IS fun for the INFJ. And also, they always function older than their years, so they don’t need to “wait til they’re older.”
It feels good to understand something like that. To put one more piece in the puzzle. But then I thought, I want to know more about my own kids. Every little thing I learn about my own kids’ personality type makes me a better parent. So I got sidetracked and googled ESFP. That son’s type is very hard for me.
But more on his type later. (Like when I do a course about why ESFPs get diagnosed with ADD when they just need to be in a dance class.)
My point here is that it is absolutely imperative that parents and spouses understand the personality types in their families. I’m convinced that marriages would stay together if people understood type, because knowing someone’s type makes you less likely to expect something of them they cannot deliver on. And knowing your own type makes you more likely to understand why your spouse can’t be as great at doing what matters to you as you are.
Parenting should be an exercise in being an expert on your kid’s type. It’s like parenting blind vs taking off the blindfold. That’s how dramatic it is to be an expert on type. So, this course is for INFJ types. And other courses are coming. And meanwhile, do a google search. Learning just one more thing about my sons makes me happy.
And, if you’re not sure about your child’s type, you can email me and I’ll help you figure it out. Meanwhile, here’s a link to the INFJ course.
This course includes four days of on-demand video sessions and email-based course materials. The cost is $195. Sign up now.
I had a whole long comment written for this post about the course over in the other section, but I deleted it since I always overthink things and over edit…ha. And I’m this close to deleting this comment. Anyway, I am an INFJ/HSP/hefty dose of paralyzing perfectionism mother of a 10 year old most likely INTJ boy just like his dad, and an almost 6 year old ESFP girl, who is the happiest, most loving, most exuberant free spirit child I have ever known and she is both exhausting and inspiring. I am always wishing I was more like her, but at the same time wondering where in the world she came from considering she is the complete opposite of our introvert-dominant family. Ha.
I am also still figuring myself out since I grew up under a very type A ENTJ father, and an ISFJ mother and I believed until relatively recently that there was something very wrong with me and that I should try to be someone different because nobody really gets people like me. Haha. I don’t know if I’ll take the course since I tend to think I can figure these things out on my own. I also just really believe I need to just settle into the dream life (a home on acreage in the hills away from the city and near a smallish town) we just recently created for ourselves and just breathe and relax, something I have not been able to do in a very long time.
Penelope, these two lasts posts on INFJs made me (finally) understand that my boyfriend is one of them. And – bang! – everything became so obvious. Why he would refuse to work on a promising business project, inventing some excuse, but in fact because it just “doesn’t feel right”. Not tell me something till later because exactly “you wouldn’t have cared earlier”. And it’s true. I wouldn’t. Being silent for several hour and then confess that he was sad because of some world’s injustice.
Now i know. Thank you. My life just became so much better.
Yours,
very happy INTJ.
We should probably both take your courses on both of our types :)
Liza, a lot of people can’t figure out if they are an INTJ or an INFJ so I wrote up a little bit about the differences between the two. I think you will like it now that you know you and your boyfriends’ types. So I’m pasting it here:
Both and INTJ and an INFJ are generally right all the time. And both types feel that they know more than other people. This is not a common belief to have — that we know more than most people. And it’s something that is very special about both and INTJ and an INFJ.
But an INTJ knows more about solving complex problems, and an INFJ knows more about people.
An INTJ walks into a room and immediately starts seeing things that could be done better – if only there were a better system in place. An INTJ knows more about creating systems to solve problems than any other type.
An INFJ walks into a room and immediately sees through all the people. An INFJ knows more about people than any other type. And an INFJ intuitively knows what each person could do to make their life better.
An INTJ doesn’t care what another person can do to make their life better. it’s too small a problem to be interesting to an INTJ.
An INFJ doesn’t naturally gravitate to solving complex problems. An INFJ is too grounded in what is right and wrong on an ethical and moral level.
Both an INFJ and an INTJ are very competent at what they care to do. Yet if someone were to tell an INTJ they are incompetent, the INTJ would ignore it. If someone were to tell an INFJ they were incompetent the INFJ would want to understand more what they mean.
Penelope
!!!
This is so true! Amazing! We both always feel like we know more than other people, but in very different ways.
I think there’s another important distinction:
he knows about people because he just sees them. Or feels them. Anyway, i don’t know how it works.
I also know about people (i was trained as a psychologist – and switched to science for an obvious reason), but i know because i reason about them. I look at the behaviour and make inferences. From those inferences i build a model of a person’s mind. From the model i make predictions.
At the end we both can describe people, predict how they will behave and our conclusions are often the same but we arrive there by two separate paths.
Thank you again.
Hello Penelope
I think I am an INFP (from two different tests, including Quistic), but what you say about INFJ really resonates with me. So, could you tell me what the difference is between the two ?
Thanks.
An INFP needs so much alone time they pretty much spend their whole life trying to get enough. An INFJ needs alone time, but they can get enough.
An INFJ will endure conflict in order to uphold a principle. And INFP will not hold as tightly to principles — and INFP is more flexible about how they think — and also, and INFP cannot endure conflict as well as an INFJ.
Mostly, though, and INFP does not need closure — leaving everything open and rethinking things again and again is fine for the INFP. The INFJ wants to analyze, be done and move on.
Penelope
Okay, so definitely INFP there !
Thank you !
Penelope, In the last paragraph, do you mean “INFJ” does not need closure?
I love the distinctions you’ve made between INFJ and INTJ as well as INFJ and INFP. I am an INFJ and had been close to both an INTJ and an INFP (females) in the past.
Oh. I’m correcting it… the INFJ needs closure the INFP doesn’t.
Penelope
Hi Penelope,
I am trying to sign up for the INFJ class but the advertised price differs from the actual price –
The cost is $195 but if you sign up in the next three days the price is $145. Can you honor the advertised price? Thanks so much!
One thing you didn’t mention is that being an INFJ is lonely, especially for children, teens and young adults. I can remember so clearly seeing something that was happening, something about an adult, etc. and no one around me could see it. To be a child who has an uncanny insight about people is very challenging and bewildering. When I was little, no one talked about personality types.
It’s still lonely as an adult at times, but now that I understand my personality I am better able to deal with it.
Re: INFJs always being right and always basing things on an ethical/moral ground… It is very challenging to learn how to balance that and not come across as a know-it-all, especially as a young adult who hasn’t lived enough to be given the deference that age and life experience affords.
Parents who have INFJ children need to take seriously the way their child is wired. It’s a challenging life to live.
And as much as I’ve read about personality types, I have yet to figure out my own eight year old. She’s a conundrum to me.
“I’m convinced that marriages would stay together if people understood type, because knowing someone’s type makes you less likely to expect something of them they cannot deliver on. And knowing your own type makes you more likely to understand why your spouse can’t be as great at doing what matters to you as you are.”
I think it would be WAY better to find this out before getting married and before getting serious with anyone.
Finding out after-the-fact that your emotional life sucks ass to your significant other (not because you all have some “figuring out” to do, but it is partner’s personality type to think that way and it isn’t changing) is rough.
Absolutely, in the above scenario, INFJ can learn to not discuss emotion-related topics with partner.
But when INFJ is unable to do the things partner wants done, and (performance-based and transaction-based) partner is incapable of understanding and letting it go, but instead assumes laziness and selfishness, what can INFJ do?
Hide from partner until she figures things out? What if she can’t figure it out? What if her INFJ way is trial-and-error (for YEARS) and hashing through issues (both in her head and hopefully through talking with some precious soul who understands it isn’t bitching and complaining. It is troubleshooting and hashing and trying to get to the bottom and through and out.)
INTJ can give up having most of her needs met by another. And can stay out of partner’s way so he may to do as he desires (because he wants nothing to do with her sensitivity, awareness and thought-provoking insight and ideas–her true gifts to the world and her life’s passion and purpose). But when partner doesn’t like her INFJ traits and is intrusive about it, what can be done? Besides leave.
I am sure this is just one of many examples of two personality types which just suck together. Like I said, knowning these sorts of things before committing and/or *especially* making babies together is crucial.
Typo. I meant INFJ throughout