o_19kdfsn0q18e31dfraas1esh19vta.pdf

own, but he enjoyed making up games and stories for other people's children. However, being an
intuitive, there were some things he simply didn't enjoy doing with children. As one of his grown
up child-friends recalled,
Lewis Carroll believed very much in a great amount of exercise, and said one should always go to bed
physically wearied with the exercise of the day. Accordingly, there was no way out of it, and every
afternoon I had to walk to the top of Beachy Head. He was very good and kind. He would invent all
sorts of new games to beguile the tedium of the way. One very curious and strange trait in his character
was shown in these walks. I used to be very fond of flowers and animals also. A pretty dog or a hedge of
honeysuckle was always a pleasant event upon our walk to me. And yet he himself cared for neither
flowers nor animals. Tender and kind as he was, simple and unassuming in all his tastes, yet he did not
like flowers.... He knew children so thoroughly and well, that it is all the stranger that he did not care for
things that generally attract them so much.... When I was in raptures over a poppy or a dog-rose, he
would try hard to be as interested as I was, but even to my childish eyes it was an effort, and he would
always rather invent some new game for us to play at. Once, and once only, I remember him to have
taken an interest in a flower, and that was because of the folklore that was attached to it, and not because
of the beauty of the flower itself.
As intuitives, INTJs are not really interested in the concrete. They would rather use concrete
objects as a starting point to spur abstract thought; in this case, Carroll explained how foxglove
flowers were originally supposed to be used as gloves by the fairy folk, thus they were called "folks'
gloves," which was eventually corrupted into "foxgloves." An INTJ isn't so much interested in the
flower itself as the flower's history and linguistic evolution. If an INTJ parent finds themselves
bored with playtime, the reason may be that the activity calls for too much Sensing. A slight
modification of the activity can make it fun for both parent and child: "Let's take this flower home
and read about it in a flower book. We can press it and make a collection."
Discipline
Keirsey has noted that Rationals, unlike other temperaments, aren't so much given to lectures,
scoldings, and groundings so much as simply stating, "Okay then. You've lost that privilege for
awhile," and then depriving the child of the opportunity to affect/enjoy/control that part of their
environment. 223 By such impersonal, logic-based and minimally punitive measures they teach their
children that bad behavior isn't about "me being angry at you and trying to make you feel bad to
show you the error of your ways" so much as "you making an illogical choice that results in the loss
of your pleasure." The idea is to teach the child that poor choices always imply logical negative
consequences. The Rational parent tries to demonstrate that making a bad choice is like throwing a
rock up in the air and letting it fall down and hit oneself in the face. It isn't that the rock hates you,
or thinks that you have done wrong; no, the rock has neither feelings nor any sense of justice.
Rather, the rock is merely obeying the amoral, implacable laws of physics. Many people break
rules, but few people try to break the laws of physics. The logic-oriented Rationals instinctively
realize this, and tend to have better success with discipline than other types. It should also be added
that (like all Rational parents) INTJs have a tendency towards sternness. This tendency is stronger
because they are Judging Rationals.
An exception to the point I made earlier about lecturing. INTJs will give lectures to explain why a
rule is why it is. (A good example of a Rational lecture is the one the NT father gave to his son
Karl. See the next chapter.) INTJs never fall back on the reasons so many parents give, "Because I
223 Keirsey, 1998