Imaginary friends help young children to thrive
Melanie Defries
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Children's imaginary friends offer adventure, emotional support and boredom-relief to their real-life companions, according to research from the Institute of Education.
Educational psychologist Karen Majors interviewed six children agedbetween five and ten and their parents, as well as adults who gaveretrospective accounts of their imaginary childhood companions.
All the children had more than one imaginary friend, with, in somecases, each meeting a different purpose. Six-year-old Luke invented afriendly duck when he went through a stage of not liking swimminglessons. Luke said, 'I was swimming a width and I thought I would doanother one with my imaginary friend. I needed it to be a swimming oneso I chose a duck.'
Ms Majors found that an only child or a much older sibling was morelikely to have imaginary friends, as were children with some specialneeds, including autism and Down's syndrome. It was common for thecompanions to be created when a brother or sister was born.
Some imaginary friends showed unfriendly as well as friendlycharacteristics and some children reported fighting with them. However,Ms Majors said, these interactions seemed to serve a positive purpose,enabling the child to deal with social situations which had upset them.
