Truity's Personality and Careers Blog

Do I give my baby a pacifier or let her cry herself to sleep? Should I force the defiant toddler into a coat or let him feel the pain? Shall I let my child make his own decisions or enforce the rules with an iron fist?

All parents face challenges..... so many challenges! We all worry about whether we're doing the right thing. But when you're an Intuitive, Perceiving type (ENTP, INTP, ENFP, INFP), even the simplest decisions can seem effortful and huge. These types thrive in an environment of possibility and creative thinking. They worry that even a small decision could have serious long-term consequences for their child.

Here are five struggles that every NP encounters at some point in their parenting career. Let's see how many resonate!

1: Having to Deal with Routines

Being on time for school drop offs? 1 p.m. naptime? Doing things by the clock? What's the deal with that? Kids aren't machines! Routines might bring a sense of calm to Sensing-Judging types but they send you into a bit of a panic. You instinctively see the big picture rather than the boring, mundane details, which means that going potty, brushing teeth and keeping up with the laundry is endlessly frustrating to you.

Intuitive-Perceiving parents are full of curiosity and playfulness. You love to watch your kids explore the world and need to have an unstructured schedule where you can have a spontaneous picnic, wander the woods or kick back and go with whatever sparks your curiosity at any given time. You might be creating a rod for your own back, especially if you're raising a child who needs routines to feel grounded. But you're a much more relaxed parent when everything's a bit, well, random.

2: Overidentifying

This one is primarily for NFPs who can be so in tune with their child's feelings that they feel utterly crushed when their child feels pain. It can be extremely distressing for an NFP parent to discipline their child as they find it so easy to identify with him. And it's even more distressing when your partner is a firmer type who disagrees with your lenient approach to disobedience. Inconsistent discipline styles can be a great source of conflict to NFPs, who feel torn between maintaining family harmony and wanting to make the best decision for their child.

Overidentifying is especially problematic when you have more than one child. Most NFPs feel an urgent need to treat all their children fairly and to demonstrate that they love them all equally. Yet all siblings, at some time or another, believe that a situation is marred by favoritism. This dynamic can be deeply painful to NFPs. When a child is hurt by the way you're handling a situation, it cuts you to the quick.

3: Feeling Overburdened by Societal Pressures

We tend to label NPs as the playful, open-minded types of the 16-type system, who like to bring a little magic into their children's lives. And that's true, to a point. Intuitive-Perceivers will always teach their children that it's good to question, to explore and to challenge any rule that doesn't make sense. You really don't like the idea of controlling your child or shutting down their independence, so you tolerate a fair amount of rule breaking and encourage the endless stream "look at this!", "how does this work?" and "why, daddy, why?"

What's less understood is that NPs, and especially the introverted versions, feel isolated when it comes to parenting. There's a tremendous amount of societal pressure to conform to a certain style of child-rearing, and that style invariably is more hands-on and traditional than you support. The reason is that most women are SFJ types, and since it's still moms who tend to do most of the child-rearing, it's their experience that gets publicized the most. NPs can feel quite disconnected from this version of reality, to the point where they second guess themselves and worry that they're getting every decision wrong.

It's overwhelming to not be like the other moms out there. But the fact is, if you don't see the point of what you're doing, you're going to loathe doing it. More than a few NP parents have found themselves completely conflicted about the nonsensical nature of how certain child-related things are done – but it doesn't stop the gnawing sense of self-doubt that it's you who's wrong when you break from tradition and do things your own way.

4: Coping with the Sloooooow Speed of Childhood

We've established that NP parents struggle with the day-to-day drudgery of parenting; another problem is the complete loss of momentum you experience when you realize that this stuff goes on for years and years and years. Parenting is slow work – there are years of changing diapers, years of bagging up lunches, years of swimming lessons and homework help and parent-teacher conferences and dealing with kids who are fussy or emotionally needy or facing yet another friendship crisis.

And of course you'll try your best to cope with all of this even if your brain is dribbling out of your ears. But it's a struggle, because you feel completely trapped and stifled by the sameness of it all.

5: The Tendency to Wear Yourself Out When Presented with Multiple Options

If there's one constant about parenting, it's that it presents you with an endless flow of novel decisions and challenges. Do you feed your kids this food or that food? Do you buy this toy or that toy? Do you sign your kids up for this activity or that activity? Do you practice positive parenting, attachment parenting, free-range parenting, conscious parenting or French parenting? Do you choose this health guideline/ educational option/ vaccination schedule/ behavioral intervention/ screen-time plan/ freakin' Tooth Fairy myth or that one? You have so many choices to make all the time and it's exhausting!

Let's face it, NPs are not renowned for making snappy decisions. You like to explore every option to death, and it's only after you've considered every angle, pro, con and future impact that you'll dig yourself into this hole...or that one. There are plenty of upsides to this kind of decision-making style, but the one monumental downside is that it takes an awful lot of mental energy. Swinging from one option to the next takes a deep emotional toll. That means you're at a greater risk of burnout than other personality types, and you need to find ways to get some closure for your own peace of mind.