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MBTI and children

goodgrief

New member
Joined
Apr 3, 2010
Messages
480
MBTI Type
INTJ
Didn't discover MBTI til 15 or 16. But here is a bit about me as a child.

I was a shy and introverted child, but I was quite smart, and I could form proper sentences... I can't remember, but my mother said it was very early. I was definitely N as a child. I paid little attention to the external world and got in trouble because I was absent minded. I had very specialised areas of expertise, mainly dinosaurs at first, and in grade 1 I could spell palaeontology speaking. I also liked writing stories, and was pretty good at it. I made 1 friend in pre primary who I played with ALL the time and nobody else. He left the next year. I slowly made some other aquaintances but could not name many of my classmates. About grade 3 I became a total loner and spent breaks walking around thhinking and singing a song from the Jungle book. I was also failing class because I kept wandering off on trains of thought. I had no taste in music. I just listened to what my parents did mostly. I was diagnosed with ADHD (primarily innatentive) and was given medication for it for about a year. I got a bit better at paying attention and made a friend, but not that good of one. They sort of just admired my drawing skills. I was EXTREMELY gulligble as a child and believed everything I was told. I believed another student could teach me magic and followed him around like a sheep for a whole term. Around this time I started worrying what other people thought, which was not a good thing. I became jealous when others beat me at stuff I liked and began craving attention. I (somehow) became a class clown around year 6, and I could be a bit rude and immature. My areas of expertise shifted but I was still focused on whatever they were, not paying attention to the world as a whole. I also developed a small but close group of friends, including a tomboyish girl who would have a crush on me at age 12, though I was still very nervous about sexuality and rejected the very notion. Also, I became less humorous and less popular, just becoming some weird kid, but I didn't mind because I had a good group of friends. I became a bit more cynical and rational though and got annoyed at the social heirachy system in which at my school, a jerk was the most popular kid, and he was slightly better than me in computing (one of my areas of expertise) and was constantly called as the computer expert despite the fact I wanted to help.

And that concludes my primary school life and my evolution of character up to age 13. I'd say I was INTX (like now) for most of my life, though I had a period where I leaned towards E, which I did not like later.
 

Rebe

New member
Joined
Nov 15, 2009
Messages
1,431
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
4sop
I have taken care of a lot of children - and it is pretty hard to type them because I never quite know what their motivations are, if they are simple or complex, depth of awareness, but they have all been under six, so that's ... understandable. I can pick out a couple of letters, maybe whether they are NF/NT/SP/SJ if it is obvious enough, but the criteria is different.

I was extremely drawn to this one child 3-4 yrs old who was painfully, painfully shy. I typed her as NF almost immediately, felt for her in a way I didn't for other kids I worked with. She would play with one child or sit by herself. Later on, at age 5, she became more outgoing and a bit manipulative ... She could be INFJ or ISFJ, or a T even.

My mom told me I was very quiet as a child. I was very good as I don't remember being punished. In all of my childhood photos, I look very, very serious and withdrawn and quiet, a bit 'not there'. I never appeared goofy in those photos or energized. As I grew up, I became outspoken in that I'd say the wrong things...bluntly...without consideration of how it came out or how I meant it to be. I took care of my younger brother - cooked and cleaned when I was a pre-teen. Then, early teens, I rebelled Hard! I fought with my mother all the time, wanted my freedom and independence. I was extremely, extremely quiet in school, found history-art-english classes interesting, hated gym and math with Passion, observed the other kids like they were aliens or I was the alien. Did not get along with the other kids at all and they in turn found me weird and quiet. Became very self-conscious and withdrawn and depressed. Was that way from middle school until freshman year college basically. I don't know if that is the standard for INFPs, I was never bubbly or a people pleaser. I had no idea what I was doing, how to live, how to do the basics, basically and that has traumatized me. I think NFs need specific types of nourishing and teachings that the education system misses and that parents don't always know how to give and it is important for their growth ... Maybe it has made me stronger or something, but what people do naturally I just could not understand.
 

goodgrief

New member
Joined
Apr 3, 2010
Messages
480
MBTI Type
INTJ
Rebe, I read the post that other guy made on the writing style thread in response to you, and along with this I agree. You do come off as INTP. Also your sig lists you as INFP but with a pic describing you as moderately expressed thinking. So what are you?
 

Mole

Permabanned
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
20,284
I read the post that other guy made on the writing style

First we have the fraud of MBTI, now backed up by the fraud of graphology.

Anything to get us through the night, I guess.
 

Rebe

New member
Joined
Nov 15, 2009
Messages
1,431
MBTI Type
INFP
Enneagram
4sop
Rebe, I read the post that other guy made on the writing style thread in response to you, and along with this I agree. You do come off as INTP. Also your sig lists you as INFP but with a pic describing you as moderately expressed thinking. So what are you?

I didn't know the little graph would serve to be confusing. First of all, the questions to these tests are so blatantly obvious and I have studied this theory for a while now. I posted the graph because I answered the questions honestly and that was what it came up with, so...I wasn't going to manipulate the answers to get infp. As I explained to his post, I have this huge, huge preference for being NT and I don't like that INFPs are depicted as all bunnies and rainbows, but I am quite sure I am INFP, the profile fits me the best. Before I told everyone I was INFP though, there were a few 'You sound very INTJ' responses. :D

I am curious though, how is what I post more INTP than INFP?
 
G

Glycerine

Guest
You could tell I was NFJ by the time I was like 6. However the very time I took it I got ESTJ. Even though I had just learned English a year before, I would not shut up and everything that came out of my mouth was a question. I just could not let things go... I NEEDED to know why about practically everything. I think I still drive people nuts with my questions because they usually don't know the answer.
 

Aleksei

Yeah, I can fly.
Joined
Mar 10, 2010
Messages
3,626
MBTI Type
ENTJ
Enneagram
7w6
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
I think most people change type after puberty. I'm actually still tryong to figure out what my childhood type was, I'm undecided between INTP and INFP.
 

miss fortune

not to be trusted
Joined
Oct 4, 2007
Messages
20,589
Enneagram
827
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
I was such an ENTJ when I was younger, actually :shock:

I've mellowed with age... which is probably a good thing, because I wasn't a nice ENTJ :blush:
 

miss fortune

not to be trusted
Joined
Oct 4, 2007
Messages
20,589
Enneagram
827
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
yeah... it's amazing what age does... I was evily scheming and Machiavellian as well! :horor:
 

sculpting

New member
Joined
Jan 28, 2009
Messages
4,148
Excellent question.

(I'm breaking this into parts.)

You might be interested to know the MMTIC (Murphy-Meisgeier Type Indicator for Children) has just been revised. This is a MBTI-based tool that is geared for folks with lower reading levels. (I *think* MBTI is directed towards a reading level of Grade 8-10, but I might be wrong.) The questions are also age-appropriate. (As with any MBTI translation, there are multiple layers required to translate.)

For example, questions on the MMTIC would say things like: When you come home from school, you would rather A) go play, then do your homework or B) Do your homework, then go play.

MMTIC is used in counseling situations.

I wish this lady-rivercrow-was still around. She sounds pretty cool.

I took the above test and it said I was 98% certain on all four scales to be an ENFP. It is meant for children.

(The adult tests tested me as an INTP, an ENTP and an INFP with only slight prefs on the E/I and T/F scales)

I read about an MBTI researcher studying infant MBTI types who said that children will begin displaying tendencies that allow guesses at typing as young as nine months. Introversion/extroversion and need for order/structure (P/J) are very obvious even at that young age. Kids cant really describe what they are doing until about ten though-ie consciously understand the preference.

It was neat watching my 14 yo enfp. Ne was amazingly obvious from about 9 months-he never stopped investigating and seeking stimuli. Fi didnt become apparent until about 11 years. He is now nicer than me and lets me know about all of the mean things I do.
 
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