Episode 67

Sandra interviews Mark, an ISTJ Enneagram Six Dad to 2 kids who is a house cleaning manager and an avid back country hiker. 

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Full show notes: 

For background information on the Preservation Sensing (Introverted Sensing) function in parents, check out episode 64. 

Sandra introduces Mark. He is a dad of two children ages 3 and 5.  He works in cleaning service management and loves to hike.

Mark talks about his experience as an ISTJ parent:

• He feels like he is the type of person who could eat the same meal each day for the most part. He likes routine and sometimes finds it hard to break out of it. 
• He says he can’t do the same thing until the end of time though. But he only needs little tweaks to change things up, for example, changing the cereal he eats in the morning. 
• He keeps track of his experiences to inform how he will approach things in the future. On his last backcountry hike, he kept notes on his phone about what went well and what didn’t, for example, whether or not he liked the brand of sock he used, so that next year he can use that to plan for the next big hike.
• Their family is using a new financial account and he is diligently checking to see if it’s the best tool by using a spreadsheet to measure the amount of interest their paying etc. Sandra mentions that using external measurements to make sure something is the right tool is in line with ISTJ’s second function of Efficient Thinking (Extraverted Thinking)
• He wishes there was a report card or something like it, to be able to have some sort of external measurement to tell him and his wife how they are doing with their parenting. He really appreciates when he hears from others that he has good kids.
• For the most part, he wants to fall in line with what is expected of him and he wants others to do the same, as long as he trusts the authority from which the information is coming. 
• The hardest part about parenting for him is having a lot of things thrown at him at once and not having the time to consider and process before making decisions
• He is much more of a stern and “by the book” parent than his wife, wanting to follow the rule just so, no matter the circumstance. 
• He brings forward things from his own experience in childhood into his parenting now, such as always saying grace before dinner. 
• His ideal day with his family would be to go on a hike together and eat schnitzel for dinner!

Write in or leave a comment: Are you an ISTJ parent or do you know one? – do you notice these themes in your parenting? Tell us about that.