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Imaginary Friends...
Comments
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It's a natural healthy stage of development that many young children go through. It's a way of experimenting with the ideas of friendship (having a conversation, doing things together, taking turns, etc.) without needing a real person. It also demonstrates emerging thinking skills, including the ability to think in the abstract (imagining things that aren't actually happening, recalling events from the past, thinking what if....). It's certainly to be encouraged (and will happen anyway). Children who don't go through this stage often play similarly with dolls, toy animals or other toys, talking to them and directing them. Again, this (symbolic play) is very much to be nurtured.
The time to worry about this is it is sustained through middle childhood, when it can be a substitute for the real thing, or in later adolescence when it can be a sign of emerging mental health difficulties.somewhere between Heaven and Woolworth's0 -
My eldest son had a friend call Bam the very important baby. He always had to check with Bam before he did things - like I'd ask if he wanted to go to the park, and he'd chunter on and say yes Bam said it was ok for them to go to the park. He also had a pet cat called Snowy.
I used to humour him and say things like "it's chicken for tea tonight - hope that's ok with Bam" and pretend to stroke his cat.
Then my Mam bought him a stuffed cat and told him that was Snowy and he never mentioned Bam or Snowy again and refused to have anything to go with the toy cat.
I'd say go along with it as I think it really helps to develop their imaginations. My middle one didn't have any imaginary friends, and I've noticed he's not as imaginative as his brother.Here I go again on my own....0 -
Oh yes my now 6.5 yo daughter had a heap of them at around age 3. All were animals and some came on holiday with us and we had to sort out their passport.:rolleyes::rotfl:
She now rarely mentions them but went onto expand into a 'make-believe' game she still plays occassionaly where she is mum and me, her dad, brother and some dolls are other family members.
More recently she has started writing 'books' (paper stapled together) for when she's older. She's sorted out the theme tune and the dance the animated characters will do in the opening sequence for when a tv company buys the rights to televise her books.:D
Last year her teacher put her into the year above to do creative writing. Don't worry about it.0 -
There was bound to be some fruitcake along that would spin this story.
Kids pretend to be:
Bruce Lee
Dragons
Policemen
Gangsters
Etc
Doesnt mean they are seeing all these things for real in front of them does it,
so because I am a spiritualist (which is a recognised religion btw) and believe my twin grand-daughters when they tell me nanny wendy visits them (their mums mother died years before they were born) to play with them - I am a fruitcake?
the gds also told their mother she was pregnant when she never even suspected it and said it would be a sister for them - they were about three and half then. and they were right! they have also correctly informed their aunt and a couple of mums friends when they were pregnant.
both of them see people who no one else can see. on a class trip to a museum of welsh life people were amused to see the one DG apparently playing by herself a very active game of chase! the other was having a conversation with an elderly gentleman no one else could see either. their mum says she is never taking them back there! both the girls are very matter of fact about things but now they are five they have picked up that most people would call thier friends 'ghosts'. we try not to make too much of things and are prepared for the fact that they may or may not keep or develop this gift.
my bro had an imaginary friend for years even remember his name 'Gilbert'.0 -
I'm still in touch with my imaginary friends!0
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Imaginary friends rock
My twins had an imaginary friend when they were toddlers called Eddie. Whenever anything got broke, torn, emptied out, drawn on, flushed away, eaten etc. The twins would say "Eddie did it":rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:Twins, twice the laughs, twice the fun, twice the mess!:j:j0 -
lmao - my twin GDs just point to the other one and say 'she did it'!0
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I may be speaking out of term but...
apparently kids being so innocent are able to see things that we cant as we are told to stop being silly and the person they cannot see are not real (because we cant see them) and some people say that they are actually ghosts!!
I know some may mock but a friends little boy had an 'imaginary' friend - the parents played along for a week or so thinking it would pass and eventually they asked what their friends name was - I cant remember what it was but it was a really old fashioned name and the parents didnt know anyone of that name, no-one at nursery wasnt of that name and nor were parents of kids at nursery!!! and the clothes that were described were of victorian times!!!!
he eventually stopped talking about him because people kept telling him he was being silly having an imaginary friend but who knows?!!?!?!
This totally happened to me as a child. I had an imaginary friend & it turned out to be a ghostI used to talk to him on the landing of the stairs in a house my parents were renting. They found, after they moved out, that a man had hung himself on that landing. Asked me for a description of him & it was all of the right period in terms of clothing. I was three. Go figure.
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Reminds me of when my eldest who was about 3 or 4 at the time had an imaginary lawn mower (the sit on one) as his friend. Strange thing was he was petrified of the sit on mowers when he saw the council cutting the grass.0
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Hi,
I remember having two imaginary friends when i was younger. They were a boy and a girl called Hida and BonnerI used to talk to them and play with them and make my Mum set a place at the table for them:o. I think they were around for a couple of years and one day i got into trouble for something they had done and told them off. I never saw them again after that. I can't remember if i could actually see them or if i was just imagining them but to me they were real IYSWIM.
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