In this Episode, Sandra and Em discuss how the 9 Enneagram types show up in our parenting. This is part 2 of a 3 part series.
Our topic of the day covers:
- Enneagram types Four, Five and Six. We talk about each type’s focus, each type’s passion, or dark side, and how these defense mechanisms may have been activated in childhood. And then we go into how each type shows up in our parenting.
Also, in our “Em Spends Too Much Time on the Internet” segment, we analyze the series Unorthodox on Netflix, using, of course: personality type.
Links and references:
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Website: www.familypersonalities.com/podcast
To do personality type work with Sandra E-mail her at Sandra@FamilyPersonalities.com or check out more on her website: www.familypersonalities.com
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Full show notes:
What’s new with Sandra & Em
Em talks about picking up her daughter’s things from preschool this week and the unexpected grief that rose up from doing that. They talk about looking for the “yes and” moments to demonstrate that an event can be both difficult and wonderful at the same time.
Sandra updates that her mental health is doing better than the previous time that they recorded together but that she still feels she’s hit that social distancing “wall.” Distance learning is a slog and she can’t remember the last time she brushed her children’s hair but IT’S FINE!
Segment: Em spends too much time on the Internet
In our “Em spends too much time on the Internet” segment, Em brings up Unorthodox (on Netflix). Em ponders how rigid that community is and that it takes a certain personality type to do okay in that sort of environment. Sandra speculates that FJs on the Myers-Briggs model, who are generally on board with following rules that serve the collective good of the community might do okay but FPs might struggle more. Sandra asserts that SFJs and STJs would do the best in a strict religious environment that is so different from the way the rest of the world lives even a few blocks outside the community.
Have you seen Unorthodox? What are your thoughts??
Topic of the Day: How the 9 Enneagram types show up in our parenting (Types 4, 5 & 6)
- What is Enneagram review:
- It is the defense mechanism that was activated in your personality very early on in your childhood.
- Pat Wyman, in her book, The Three Keys to Self-Understanding, she describes Myers-Briggs as your House (your most comfortable way of being. And Enneagram is the Guard guard in front of your house (the defense mechanism you put in place to protect yourself)
- Source for most of the following information: The Complete Enneagram by Beatrice Chestnut
- Enneagram 4:
- Focus – Their feelings, the feelings of others, their connection with others – authentic expression of emotion and longing for whatever they perceive as ideal, feeling deficient as themselves – want to be more special and unique than others
- Passion – Envy – presents as a sense of lacking and craving toward obtaining that
- Childhood source – loss of love (abandonment or deprivation) early on experience that as a sense of deficiency in themselves, like they somehow caused it, and are seeking the love they long for
- Em shares that her parents divorced when she was four years old and both of her parents remarried within about a year. She received messages from her mother that her father did not love her and that it was because she was deficient. Em says this messaging continued until her 20s when she broke away from it herself.
- Em says she doesn’t have a “keeping up with the Jones’” type envy, but that she has a competition with herself, like she could always be better
- Sandra says that when Beatrice Chestnut talks about Envy, it’s more about lacking love or the ideal environment and trying to achieve that (rather than wanting to have the best car on the block for example)
- Em says a good question that has helped her is to ask herself when are all the things she is striving for enough?
- As a parent:
- Introspective and emotional
- Encourage their children to be themselves
- Go against the grain
- Share what they love with their kids
- Allow children to “feel their feelings”
- Em and Sandra discuss how Em “goes against the grain” and has no problem making different parenting choices from others, such as choosing to co-sleep still.
- Sandra says that INFPs on the Myers-Briggs model (which is Em’s type) have very strong ideals and stick to those, but that they do not expect others to follow suit. They are very “life and let live”.
- Em shares how as a child she was not allowed to express her feelings and how our kids have such a different life that they are allowed to express negative feelings. They discuss how beneficial that will be for our kids as they grow into adults.
- Enneagram 5:
- Focus – On protecting inner resources & conservation of energy, minimizing needs, observation instead of participation, analyzing and thinking, systems of knowledge – quintessential introvert
- Passion – Greed – not as greed is commonly understood (hoarding money or material goods) but holding onto what they have in light of their early experience of not getting much from others. They fear being depleted so they reduce their needs by holding back from giving to others.
- Sandra and Em wonder if certain eras in history might have produced more of certain Enneagram types
- Childhood Source – Early experience of being neglected or engulfed by others when they needed people to survive. Caregivers not responsive to their needs and they learned they could not achieve anything by reaching out so they learned to withdraw into themselves and hold onto their meager resources. Because they find other people either threatening or depriving.
- As a parent:
- Emphasize exploration & discovery (because of their love of knowledge)
- Enjoy children’s curiosity
- Need alone time
- Prefer later childhood to baby stage
- Natural teachers
- Enneagram 6
- Focus – identifying potential threats, analyzing people and situations, doubting or questioning things (themselves and other people), focus on negative data, loyalty to others who are close to them, especially the underdog
- Passion – Fear – many forms such as fear of the unknown, anxiety/worrying, self-doubt/uncertainty, guilt/shame, distrust of others.
- Childhood source – experiencing an ongoing threatening situation as a child, had an early sense that the world is a dangerous place. Could be actual dangerous conditions, periodic punishments or an unpredictable environment.
- As a parent:
- Compassionate and supportive
- Protective
- Loyal & committed
- Hard working & dependable
- Natural parents
- Project fears onto children
Action / Challenge: How does your Enneagram type show up in your parenting? What are the positive ways it shows up? What are the negative ways it shows up?
E-mail Call-out: If you are a type 4, 5 or 6, what resonated today? Anything we missed? I would love to hear if you can identify what your situation was in childhood compared with your Enneagram type.
familypersonalitypod@gmail.com
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