INTP and Parenting

[downsowf]

1. How are INTPs as parents (generally speaking)?
2. Does anyone have an INTP parent? If so, are they hands on?
3. How would you think an INTP would be as a parent?

 

[Trebuchet]

I am an INTP parent, and I have an INTP parent. We are awesome parents.

My INTP dad raised me to believe I am good with tools, math, and science, which was invaluable when I ran into teachers and fellow students who thought girls shouldn't be good at those. He has always treated me with respect and love.

Both he and my INFP mom took child development classes before becoming parents, so they would know what to expect. I love that about them. I can't say we have always gotten along perfectly, or that he is without flaws, but no one is.

To my younger self, he took care to be a good listener, gave thought to what I would need to know as an adult, and let me be myself. He was also there if I needed help, and gave me honest answers to the best of his ability. I never was a rebellious kid, possibly because I didn't have much to rebel against.

As an INTP stay-at-home mom, I like to think I'm doing it well. I try to follow my parents' examples, and be encouraging and respectful of my daughter. Like them, I'm willing to go do battle with the elementary school if I think she isn't getting what she needs. I do research on the benefits and problems with homework, and talk to the teacher if it gets out of hand. I always tell her the truth, to the best of my ability and her comprehension.

I make her practice piano every day. We spend more time chatting about science and zombies than we do about clothes (or whatever non-INTP moms talk about with their daughters). I encourage her to climb and balance and try risky-feeling things (that are actually quite safe). And since she is an introvert, I make sure she gets some down-time alone each day.

I base my final judgment on the fact that my daughter is healthy, mostly happy, confident in front of a crowd, not afraid of her own emotions, and doing well academically. She's not an athlete or physically brave, but she is energetic and gets exercise. I'll re-evaluate when she is a teenager, and see.

I think if someone is an ESTJ or something, an INTP parent would be a nightmare. But for most people, I think it would be lucky. We invest a lot of ourselves in being good parents. INTPs seem inclined to give their children opportunities to grow and explore, we aren't overprotective, we don't mind letting our child make mistakes and learn from them.

Not every parent values these things, of course. Many parents want their children to follow rules and obey authorities, and not ask too many questions. I'm more interested in teaching how and when to break rules, why that isn't always a good idea, and how to get along with people who say stupid things.

 

[NO_ARM_NINJA]

I would love to have another INTP as a parent, someone attached to me that I can actually have an intellectual conversation with. Instead, my dad is an ESFJ, which comes with its obvious problems.

 

[SpaceYeti]

I am an INTP parent. There are those who would disagree with my type, here, but there's no doubt I'm a parent. I tend to be very permissive, allowing my son to explore the world and do as he desires, giving him pointers along the way and getting him in trouble only if he does something obviously wrong. I don't tell him how to behave or think unless absolutely necessary.

Honestly, though, it's really easy to deal with my son, because he's a small me, and I know how to deal with myself. I don't know how I'd handle a child who was very different from myself. Probably the same general way, though. As a thinker, I have to remind myself to tell him when he does a good job, to help out his budding ego. I'm also very reliable, in terms of getting into trouble. Warning for the first offense, punishment for the second. His mother tends to tell him over and over until she gets angry, and I handle it before I get angry, so I think that's an overall good thing.

Of course, I haven't ever actually lived with him, and I might change as I grow more accustomed to him being there in my house. My wife sometimes says he has a nasty attitude, and I haven't seen it. I also never thought it was fair when my parents told me to do something and quit doing what I was doing, which was fun, and then yelled at me for having an attitude when, naturally, I was disappointed that I had to quit what I was doing to do something I didn't want to do. That's just plain what happens. It's not like I didn't do what they told me. That'd be different. Anyway, that's my two cents. It may mean little to someone who has a child who's vastly different than them.Or from me, anyhow.

 

[jachian]

I am an INTP parent. There are those who would disagree with my type, here, but there's no doubt I'm a parent. I tend to be very permissive, allowing my son to explore the world and do as he desires, giving him pointers along the way and getting him in trouble only if he does something obviously wrong. I don't tell him how to behave or think unless absolutely necessary.

Honestly, though, it's really easy to deal with my son, because he's a small me, and I know how to deal with myself. I don't know how I'd handle a child who was very different from myself. Probably the same general way, though. As a thinker, I have to remind myself to tell him when he does a good job, to help out his budding ego. I'm also very reliable, in terms of getting into trouble. Warning for the first offense, punishment for the second. His mother tends to tell him over and over until she gets angry, and I handle it before I get angry, so I think that's an overall good thing.

Of course, I haven't ever actually lived with him, and I might change as I grow more accustomed to him being there in my house. My wife sometimes says he has a nasty attitude, and I haven't seen it. I also never thought it was fair when my parents told me to do something and quit doing what I was doing, which was fun, and then yelled at me for having an attitude when, naturally, I was disappointed that I had to quit what I was doing to do something I didn't want to do. That's just plain what happens. It's not like I didn't do what they told me. That'd be different. Anyway, that's my two cents. It may mean little to someone who has a child who's vastly different than them.Or from me, anyhow.

I feel sorry for the poor kid............

 

[SpaceYeti]

Oh, an insult. Clever.

 

[downsowf]

SpaceYeti: It sounds like you love being a dad. I could see myself acting the same as you do with my own child (if I had one).

Trebuchet: Your daughter seems great and it seems like you take the job of a parent very seriously. I could see myself looking at my kid as a "project," but at the same time just watch and appreciate the process of him or her grow up. I could see myself just as someone who might steer the kid in the right direction if they are lost at sea. Other than that I would encourage them to do what they want and find out for themselves what's right for them.

 

[yogurtexpress]

Having an ESTJ father growing up caused me to rebel as a kid and become even more independent, so I imagine that when I'm a parent, I'll encourage them to work on their strengths and I wouldn't force them to get along in the routine SJ world if they don't want to.

 

[EditorOne]

I am an INTP parent. Apparently I did OK, none of my children ended up in jail or panhandling. The only bad aspect is that in this, parenting, as in all other things, you end up analyzing what you did and thinking you should have could have oughta done it differently.

We face the same problems with offspring that we face with the world: They may not be like us, we may not be aware of emotional situations, we may appear selfishly self-absorbed while consulting or battling our inner demons.

You do the best you can.

One thing offspring seem to appreciate, in comparison to what their peers get from their non-INTP parents, is that there's not a lot of drama if they screw up. Long ago my youngest son, a young teen at the time, helped me hitch up an old trailer to my old truck and load it with firewood. He didn't secure the locking clamp on the hitch. On the way home, on one of those 1920s concrete slab roads where all the slabs are driven down on one end and the vehicle bounces, we went around a curve by a lake and when I slowed down the trailer passed me, free of all restraints and going like a bat out of hell. A quick glance showed me no one coming at us, no one behind us, so I just said "Watch this, it's going to be cool!" I braked to get a good view, the trailer drifted off the road, the tow bar caught under the guardrail, and the trailer disintegrated as it catapulted half a cord of firewood into Johnson's Pond.
I never said boo to him about the hitch because, obviously, he knew he'd goofed, and he knew that if someone had been coming at us we'd have had to ram the trailer off the road rather than letting it take its course and it would have been really bad, since we couldn't afford another truck. As it was we just loaded the wood into the truck (two trips) and dragged the carcass of the trailer to a junk yard a half mile away.
Apparently other personality types holler and jump for weeks after such an incident, maximizing its drama potential. Since nobody got hurt I just found it interesting. And I'm quite sure the one thing he never, ever forgets to check any more is a trailer hitch.

 

[tepellian]

I'm not a parent (yet, may never be), but I have an INTP father. He wasn't hands on, but he was very interested in communicating about ideas. When I was younger, he would spend time with me explaining to me how anything I would ask about worked, or showing me how I could do what I wanted to do better. When I got older, we would talk out ideas. We got along great, but to my older brother, who says he was typed INFP when he was young (I think IXFP, he seems Se and Ne-ish), my mother will complain he did not provide enough discipline, and he never really played sports with him though they'd talk all about it, and he shares his emotions more with our mother (ISFJ, by my calculations), or other people.

Relative, I think. He is a good parent by my estimation, and I'm thankful that I had a father like him, but not the right father for everyone.

 

[Trebuchet]

I am an INTP parent. Apparently I did OK, none of my children ended up in jail or panhandling. The only bad aspect is that in this, parenting, as in all other things, you end up analyzing what you did and thinking you should have could have oughta done it differently.

Yeah, we set goals like that. If she reaches 18 alive, without going to jail or getting pregnant, we did okay.

Not mentioning mistakes (like a trailer hitch) is so INTP. Why state the obvious? I do harp on things that truly matter, like safety, since she is still so little. But with most mistakes, it is just fascinating to see how she solves it. I try to stay nonjudgmental.

Rereading my earlier post, it sounds like I think I'm a perfect parent, but no such thing. It would be nice if I never lost my temper, and stayed perfectly consistent. Instead, I find myself apologizing to her when I mess up. She is pretty forgiving, mostly.

 

[MsAnthropy_Indefatigably]

I tend to bypass those things as well (the obvious). My son tends to even punish himself in lieu of me having the capacity to follow through with such things. I hate making people feel bad for things that are clearly mistaken or obvious--I bet you INTP's don't say things like "did you gain some weight? You look heavier." or "Wow, did you see this pimple on your forehead? I can pop it for you". I wonder why it is that people feel it's necessary to point out others' weaknesses as oft and as unconstructively as they do...

I do, however, try to give any criticism of the situation to plan for better next time around.

 

[Jennywocky]

Not mentioning mistakes (like a trailer hitch) is so INTP. Why state the obvious? I do harp on things that truly matter, like safety, since she is still so little. But with most mistakes, it is just fascinating to see how she solves it. I try to stay nonjudgmental.

That sounds familiar. I come into things with much less of a 'right way' than my ex does, I'm more liable to give them some rope to explore and see what they do with it. My level of "protection" against mistakes is mostly just to make sure they don't make a mistake so bad that they cannot recover easily from it. (I consider teen pregnancy to be something in that category.) But in general, I'm less interested in correcting mistakes and more interested in seeing them learn something, and that sometimes takes a few bumps and scrapes. I do expect them to be honest -- no excuses for things, or avoiding learning the lesson -- and really, there's no need for an excuse, it's just a learning experience.

Rereading my earlier post, it sounds like I think I'm a perfect parent, but no such thing. It would be nice if I never lost my temper, and stayed perfectly consistent. Instead, I find myself apologizing to her when I mess up. She is pretty forgiving, mostly.

I've apologized to my kids too, when I've screwed up. They're generally pretty accepting; treating them with respect as fellow people seems to garner respect in return.

 

[Otherside]

I'm an INTP parent with a (probable) INTP child. I won't attempt a self-evaluation, but my family often make comments about me being a "good/great father".

I'm a big advocate of people becoming a parent if they have the means, maturity, and desire to do so. It is life's greatest gift, in my opinion.

 

[Jennywocky]

I'm a big advocate of people becoming a parent if they have the means, maturity, and desire to do so. It is life's greatest gift, in my opinion.

Agreed. It's the best thing that's ever happened in my life, and I learned so much that I would not have learned in other ways.

 

[Otherside]

Agreed. It's the best thing that's ever happened in my life, and I learned so much that I would not have learned in other ways.

My little "life instructor" and friend

 

[Beholder]

You guys are making me want a kid so badly now…

 

[Minicool]

How do you make low-cognitive dependent small individual that share time for 24 years?

For what I know, where do you find the " woman"?

 

[Vrecknidj]

I'm an INTP parent. My kids are now 24 and 19 and pleasantly had an unschooling experience. My older son is a poet, my younger son is a musician.
Of course, I'm a philosopher and my wife is an artist, so, what could one expect?

Both boys were schooled in the public schools until 3rd grade and homeschooled thereafter. One has his BA in English, the other has eschewed universities for his own path.

My wife and I are fine with each path.