Imaginary friend: why kids come up with a different mom
Psychologists say that children do not always consider fictional friends to be fictional. Rather invisible.
According to research, children most often have imaginary friends between the ages of three and five. “Friendship” can last for quite a long time, up to 10-12 years. More often than not, invisible friends are people. But in about 40 percent of cases, children imagine ghosts, fairy-tale creatures, animals – dogs, by the way, more often than cats as companions. This phenomenon is called Carlson’s syndrome.
Experts say there is no need to worry about imaginary friends. A child does not always come up with them because he is lonely. But sometimes there really is no one to play with, sometimes you need to tell someone the “most terrible secret”, and sometimes an invisible friend is an ideal version of yourself or even the whole family. There is nothing wrong with this, and with age, the child will still forget about the imaginary friend.
On the contrary, fictions have a plus: listening to what situations your child is living with with an imaginary friend, you will understand what problem he is currently worried about, in reality. Maybe he needs protection, maybe he is very bored, or maybe it’s time for him to have a pet. And also – what qualities the kid considers the best and most important.
Blogger Jamie Kenny, having learned that his daughter has such an invisible friend – Creepy Polly, she is a skeleton, eats spiders and loves Halloween – decided to interview other parents and find out with whom other children are “friends”. The results were pretty funny.
From dragon to ghost
“My daughter has a flying Pixie unicorn. They often fly together. Pixie has a baby, a unicorn toddler named Croissant. He is still too small, so he cannot fly yet. “
“My daughter was playing with an imaginary little dragon. Every day they had some kind of adventure, always different. Once they rescued the prince and princess in a deep forest. The dragon had pink and purple scales, adorned with precious stones. Sometimes a dragon friend would fly to him.
“My daughter’s friends are snakes! There are many, hundreds of them. They know how to drive a car. Sometimes the daughter arranges educational lessons when the snakes misbehave. “
“My daughter told me that she had a friend whom we could not see, and that pissed me off. I decided to ask her what he looks like. It turned out to be a purple-white shark, her name is Didi, and she comes very rarely. “
“My daughter has a friend – a ghost cat called TT. My daughter rolls her on a swing and often dumps her tricks on her. “
Whole city
“My daughter doesn’t have a friend as such, but she has a whole imaginary family. She often says that she has another dad named Speedy, who has rainbow hair, a purple shirt, and orange pants. She also has a sister, Sok, and a brother, Jackson, sometimes another mother appears, her name is Rosie. Her “father” Speedy is an irresponsible parent. He lets her eat candy all day and ride dinosaurs. “
“My daughter’s invisible friend is called Coco. She appeared when her daughter was almost two years old. They read and played together all the time. Coco was not a stupid invention, she was a real companion and stayed with her daughter for about six months. So that you understand, Coco appeared when I had a miscarriage. If the pregnancy could be delivered, I would call my second daughter Collette, and at home we would call her Coco. But my daughter didn’t even know I was pregnant. “
“My daughter has a whole city of imaginary friends. There is even a husband, his name is Hank. One day she drew it for me: a beard, glasses, checkered shirts, lives in the mountains and drives a white van. There is Nicole, she is a hairdresser, a tall, thin blonde in very expensive clothes and with big breasts. Dr. Anna, Daniel’s dance teacher who puts on dance shows every day. There are others, but these are permanent. They all lived at our house since the daughter was two years old, we all knew each other and talked to them as if they were real. Now my daughter is 7,5, and her friends do not come so often. I even miss them. “
“My son is 4 years old. He has an imaginary friend named Datos. He lives on the moon. “
“My son has an imaginary girlfriend named Apple. We cannot go in the car until I fasten it, we cannot put the bag in its place. She appeared after our friend died unexpectedly. And Apple has always died in accidents, too. I think this is how the son tried to cope with his emotions after the death of a friend. And the daughter has an imaginary mother with whom she constantly talks. She describes her to the smallest detail, tells about everything that “mother” allows her to do: eat an extra dessert, have a kitten. “