Imaginary friends, is there ever a concern?

[lynn]

My dd has an imaginary daughter she refers to as My Darling and throughout the day she tells storys about my darling, is crying because someone hit her, is in her room because she was not very kind, is crying because she's afraid of monsters etc. It seems to be these negative that she tells about. I think it's my dd's way of reasoning her feelings. I have no experience with imaginary friends to this extent so is this healthy and normal for some children?

Edited April 9, 2009 by lynn

[Stacie]

She sounds very normal to me. We've had many different forms of imaginary friends through the years. I've fixed dinner plates with imaginary food, strapped them into imaginary car seats, and read books to what seemed like an entire platoon of imaginary friends. Currently we have an imaginary monster playing outside with the 3 year old.

 

I do draw the line at mischevious behavior that is blamed on the imaginary friend. The real one must take all punishments, regardless who actually does the infraction. :D

[Maria/ME]

Well, my dd who is now 11 has had imaginary friends for a long time. She realizes they are imaginary....she makes up and writes story's about them. They are part of her inner world. While their lives are interesting to her she's never taken them completely and totally serious.

 

If your child is two or three, I'd say that is totally normal! Now let's talk about 11 year olds who STILL have them!! My daughter recently said to me that she doesn't really want to grow up because that means leaving her imaginary world behind. I told her that adults have imaginary worlds, that's how books get written! That having been said I have noticed a few "funerals" for imaginary woodland creatures lately. Sigh. Growing up is hard, but maybe she'll get famous by writing books and I can retire in luxury!:tongue_smilie:

[TeacherZee]

This sounds fine and normal to me. We are diving into our first imaginary friend stuff too. The big kids never did the imaginary friend thing but little one has 3 all of a sudden. She met them at her imaginary ballet class and one is a very tall boy! She calls them on her princess phone but they never actually visit since they live "very far away". :huh:

 

I had an imaginary big brother that my parents sent to live in England or at least that is what I told people. I might also have left the imaginary part off:D:D:D

 

Imaginary friends is a perfectly normal part of childhood. My imaginary brother disappeared around the same time as I got a real little sister. As you (OP) said it is a way of working out feelings and orientating oneself in society.

[lynn]

This sounds fine and normal to me. We are diving into our first imaginary friend stuff too. The big kids never did the imaginary friend thing but little one has 3 all of a sudden. She met them at her imaginary ballet class and one is a very tall boy! She calls them on her princess phone but they never actually visit since they live "very far away". :huh:

 

 

My dd does the phone thing to. She call "my darling" and talk and answer. It's a good thing.....yes??

[MeanestMomInMidwest]

My ds7 recently commented, "I remember when I was friends with the mouse." This is when he overheard me telling my dh that we hadn't seen "Dooba" (dd's 'friend') for awhile. I asked ds why he doesn't see the mouse anymore (he used to carry him everywhere), and he said, "well, if I imagine really hard, I can still play with him, but its really not the same anymore." It really illustrated the progression of imagination....at 3 he would insist the mouse was real, but now at 7 understands it takes a great deal of focused imagination to regain. I think when other things start crowding a child's mind (math, actual friends, bike riding, etc) they have less need for the imaginary friend.

 

My mother (who is very wise) told me that an active imagination is a sign of intelligence, so I never discourage fantasy.

[Alice]

My 5 yr old had "work guys" at that age. They could fix anything, do anything and knew the answer to any question. So if he asked me something and I didn't know he's say "you know who would know.....the work guys."

 

The 2 yr old doesn't have imaginary friends yet but he spends most of the time saying he is a monkey or a kitty or a shark or something else so he's still pretty firmly in the fantasy world. :)

 

I think it's really normal and fine.

[Aurelia]

My dd does the phone thing to. She call "my darling" and talk and answer. It's a good thing.....yes??

 

 

Yes, it shows she has an active imagination. My daughter does this from time to time, she mostly has imaginary pets, though, which she takes on the swings (and always has to pick up and carry them in, afterward), and every place else you can think of.

[elise1mds]

My son had imaginary friends, too. He started with one named John who was loosely based on my husband (he worked a lot and was often gone) but who had a lot of positive traits as well, like he'd always bring stuff back from his trips and they'd have parties. Then one day two more friends joined the party! He created Starman, who was a superhero who could fly in outer space; and Rosita, who was the silly, pregnant upstairs neighbor. We live in a single-family house, so that last one was a real surprise. The silly part came from my sister, whose neighbor at the time had some mental issues and would stand in my sister's back yard and talk to the grave of my sister's late pet cat; the pregnant part came from a friend of mine who was expecting at the time.

 

It was wonderful to watch how his psyche worked out all these people and concepts, even if he would sometimes wind up crying after talking to 'John' on the phone because John was on a business trip and couldn't come home right now. All of his imaginary friends did disappear with time.

[Stacia]

I have always heard & read that imaginary friends are a good & vital part of development in children & that children w/ imaginary friends are very intelligent.

 

I did a quick google search & here's a short excerpt from John Rosemond about the importance of imaginary friends.

 

No need to worry, imo. It's totally normal & a good thing. We went through the imaginary friends phase here too, but kids do grow out of it &/or it lessens over time (as others have already mentioned).

[AnnetteB]

This thread is actually making me "miss" Mr. Invisible, Pink, Skoosh, Nervous, and other past invisible friends that the dc and niece had, sigh. We always had to buckle up Mr. Invisible on car rides for our ds, now 25, and if there wasn't a spare belt he had to double-up with someone. I refused to keep an empty place! If the dc ever tried to shift blame onto their invisible friend we stopped that, but otherwise we let them enjoy the game.

[musicianmom]

We had 20 extra children living here about a year ago. At least 13 or so of them had names. It lasted for what seemed like forever. Finally, over the course of months, some of the children grew up and moved away, or they got old and died, or they went back to their "old mommy". I don't know if there are any left, they rarely get mentioned.

 

I sort of miss them.

[Harriet Vane]

My little girl had an imaginary baby chick when she was 2 or 3 years old. It was quite a presence in our home for a while. She would carry it around, talk to it, croon and sing over it . . . Sometimes she would be so distracted at the table by her baby chick that dh would pantomime taking it away and sitting the chick in another room. When she would finish eating dh would give the imaginary chick back to her.

 

Don't sweat it. I think it's a fairly common childhood thing to do.

[Starr]

Stewart Little lived in my son's hand for a long time. :)

[HeathenMom]

my youngest is the only one of my kids who have had imaginary friends. Re-Punch and Speedway are always up to something. Speedway is rude and kind of mean and always in trouble and Re-Punch is much nicer and smarter. i've heard him in his room making a terrible voice and he's told me that Speedway is yelling at him...i chalk the fact that there are two imaginary friends who are opposites up to him being Gemini. ;}

 

 

my dad was a little worried about it (and suggested that our house may be on an indian graveyard, LOL!), but after researching it decided that my little one's a creative genius. i will say that the scope of some of the stories he tells about them make me think he'll be a good writer, at the very least!

[lynn]

Thanks ladies. I was getting a little concerned about my darling and sometimes Julianna and Jojo. It amazes me how she is able to keep them all seperate with the individual personalities, dh and I thought dd might be bipolar...lol. She does better keeping her imaginary friends straight than I do my real life children. Now what does that say about me?:001_huh: