Ooooh!
Samvega you have no idea how much pleasure you brought to my day by posting this thread. I love recalling childhood - hope it will be helpful for you as well.
What worked for me.
With my dad:
- trips to the forest - it was like changing realities, going to another world, if you respected it, it was a familiar yet vivid place where your imagination could fly
- reading - my dad read to me constantly - and not only kiddy stuff (that too), but also magazines about political and social issues - that helped develop abstract concepts in my head and language of course
- contact with animals - oh my dad brought various home - a hedgehog, a parrot, ducks, geese, cats, dogs - great fun bonding with them, learning how they communicate and my dad always a step behind watching and sometimes ready to participate
With my mom:
I believe she's an ENTJ ;P - so a bit closer to your type.
She was my backbone and shelter. I could go and explore, but always knew that if the shit got rough I could run back to take hide. I could tell her anything and although she might not have agreed with it, it would never change her feelings for me. She took time to listen and to understand. By that listening she actually challenged me because if I wanted to reach her I needed to speak calmly and more clearly - so it structured the murky concepts in my head. Eh mushy stuff but true.
The bottom-line is acceptance and patience - namely "I love you and will wait for you and encourage you to open up - you are very special."
And INFPs make sense after a while (if you patiently wait for it
). We may not make sense in the middle stage of a relationship when we are not friends yet but already not perfect strangers. We test the waters then, about how our values may be treated in the future, so we kind of send feelers that may seem like random statements - just be patient through it. And we may need to use this procedure several times with the same person and different topics (even a very dear parent).
And what I was like as a kid?
Around others shy to initiate conversation and contact, but when challenged I delivered. If you had stolen my toys (or my friends' toys grrrrrr) I would steal them back no matter how much bigger you were. So sometimes I ended up being toughest, bravest kid in the backyard.
Maybe your son is a little lion as well.
Cheers
Sizzling