While grocery shopping with my 4 year old this weekend, he kept talking about his friend Kyle. I didn’t think much of it as he is frequently talking about a friend who is actually a friend of his older siblings. It wasn’t until he told me that he had a sleepover at Kyle’s that I started to wonder. So I starting asking questions about Kyle and determined that it seems that he has an imaginary friend.
My older two never had an imaginary friend so I wasn’t quite sure how to handle it. I did ask my Mother as I remember my younger brother having an imaginary friend. I even remember my brother saying he was going to run away to North Bay to see his imagiary friend LOL.
So I did some research about imaginary friends as Kyle seems to be the topic of conversation all week. Anytime Callum learns something new or someone does something the answer is “It was Kyle” LOL. Here is an interesting article I found from Canadian Parents that I thought I’d share with you.
Enjoy!
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Help kids make sense of a world where they have little power
By Lois Legge
Halifax Chronicle-Herald (CP)
Millions of children have best friends they’ve never actually met.
Some live right next door, while others come from places light-years away.
Some fit into the palms of little hands; others tower over their creators – giants in a world of endless possibility and imagination.
The existence of these imaginary friends often alarms the adults around them. But Nova Scotia native Marjorie Taylor, who has conducted pioneering research on the subject, says not to worry. The mysterious creations of little minds are often entertaining and soothing childhood companions that help kids make sense of a world where they have little power.
In fact, having one is perfectly normal, says Taylor, now head of psychology at University of Oregon and author of the 1999 book Imaginary Friends and the Children Who Create Them.
Taylor, 52, who grew up in Dartmouth and received her BSc and MSc from Acadia University in Wolfville, has been conducting research on the subject for 15 years.
Weve found if you follow children up to the age of seven, about 65 per cent of them at some point or another have an imaginary friend. That includes children who use a prop in their play . . . having a stuffed tiger or something like that. . . . If you only want to include invisible imaginary friends, its more like 39 per cent. Parents reactions vary from pleasant surprise to grave concern. They may even think. . . . Does it mean that Im not giving my child what they need, does this mean the child has some emotional problems and might develop some kind of mental illness? They have all kinds of worries. But Taylor says her research shows there are many benefits.
Children who have imaginary friends are better able to take the perspective of another person, to think of things from different points of view, which helps create the capacity for empathy and the childs ability to deal with many situations, she says.
And the kids who have imaginary friends, they tend to be less shy, they tend to be more sociable. Taylor first met an imaginary friend when she was attending Acadia University almost 30 years ago. Her daughter Amber, then three, kept talking about Michael Rose, a kind, funny friend from day care who loved animals.
At first I didnt know it was imaginary, she said during a telephone interview from Eugene, Ore.
I thought this was somebody at this day care she was going to, you know, a special friend. And then I wanted to meet him . . . and found out there was nobody there by that name, so I started asking her some more questions and found out that Michael Rose had a barn full of giraffes and there were a lot of special things about him. For Taylor, who later earned her PhD at Stanford University in California, the revelation was funny and fun. She enjoyed that aspect of her child’s pretend play. But she was also intrigued. Why is it that human beings do this? she wondered. And what does it do for you? She has been looking for answers ever since and has often been fascinated and surprised by what she’s found, including the fact that some imaginary friends aren’t very nice. In fact, they can be downright mean.
You would think an imaginary friend would be somebody that you would feel like you had total control of and would be someone who is always nice, she said. Why not create a nice one?
But instead they often are argumentative, they won’t share toys and do things and then once we found (that out), we thought, why not? I mean, when children are thinking about their real friends, they’re thinking about fairness and sharing and whos mean, so why wouldn’t the same issues pop up in their relationships with imaginary friends?
These are the issues children are mulling over. What does it mean to be mean and nasty or bad guys. . . . What’s bad, whats good. Taylor and fellow researchers, who have conducted a number of studies and written various research papers, now have about 500 descriptions of imaginary friends from interviews with about 350 children. Sometimes the children bring their phantom friends right into the lab, where they chat with them or even scold them to shut up.
But the kids know they’re not real. In fact, they often point that out to the researchers so immersed in finding out every last detail. And the details and diversity are amazing, Taylor says fondly.
They can be people, they can be animals, any species like a panther, a whale, a bear, a horse, a donkey, an insect. You name it . . . goats or Martians. . . . They can range in age from being infants to being 1,000 years old.
They can be tiny, they can fit into the palm of your hand or they can be giants. They can have unusual characteristics . . . blue skin or tie-dyed hair, or they can have whole families, and often there is sort of an alternative universe.
The child will talk about Elsie Welsie and Sammy Whammy . . . sort of their two imaginary friends, but they also have their friends and their parents and their children and their dogs and cats and zillions of animals and whatever else is in their world. For some children, this elaborate alternative world is a vehicle for telling stories. In fact, children usually invent the friends simply for fun and entertainment, Taylor says. Suppose the childs real friend Rachel cant come to play. She or he can create a fake Rachel to kill the boredom.
But also there are times when youre feeling sad and you want someone to talk to, someone that you know can keep a secret. An imaginary friend is perfect for that, Taylor says.
Or maybe youre feeling a little scared (by) that dog that moved in next door and its a little scary to walk down the street now. So having your imaginary friend tiger by your side can give you the boost you need to go on with your activities. Imaginary friends do help children cope with troubles, but Taylor says people too often assume children are turning to an invisible companion to deal with trauma.
Sure, a lot of children who have been abused have imaginary friends and you understand why. They need a friend, they need someone who is going to be supportive and who is not going to tell. Its an important adaptive response to them. It doesn’t mean that children who have imaginary friends have been traumatized. Taylor says parents should be concerned about certain behaviour regardless of whether children have imaginary friends.
If a child is not talking to anybody, anybody real, then you’re concerned about that child and it doesn’t matter whether or not they have an imaginary friend.
For me, the things that concern you about a child might be being withdrawn or not having any real friends or seeming sad or depressed or having difficulty sleeping or difficulty in school . . . and if the child also has an imaginary friend, to me thats at least (showing) they’re trying to do something about it. . . . The imaginary friend per se is not the problem. In fact, parents can even use the imaginary friends as a window into what their children are thinking and feeling, the researcher says. If a child starts a new play group, for example, discovering what the imaginary friend thinks could reveal whether or not theyre happy there.
Relax and enjoy it, is Taylors main message to parents. Their friend is your friend, too.
(Halifax Chronicle-Herald)
I realized after I posted that I should have... 
