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Pre-School and Daycare
HattieLove
member
Imaginary Friends
HattieLove
member
Lurking...
I'm an early childhood/elementary education student and I'm doing my final project for my developmental psych class on imaginary friends, and I was hoping you all could help! Feel free to just share or here are some questions for guidance.
1. Does your child have an imaginary friend?
2. How long have they had this friend?
3. Has it always just been one friend? Do they cycle between imaginary friends?
4. Do they engage in a lot of other imaginary play? Does most of it include their imaginary friend or not?
5. How often is their imaginary friend around? Is it every once in a while or the majority of the time?
Thanks so much for your help! Also posted on the school-aged children board.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Imaginary Friends
1. Does your child have an imaginary friend?
Not at the moment, but he has had a bunch of them. His first was a red cow that lived in our basement that ate notebooks and could do all of the things he found scary at the playground. That one appeared at around 21 months.
2. How long have they had this friend?
He started with Red Moo Cow at 21 months and held onto that one, while adding in others, until around 2.5. The others come and go.
3. Has it always just been one friend? Do they cycle between imaginary friends?
He has had many. Red Moo Cow, Mickey Mouse, a boy that drives a red car in circles around the dining room, a tiny man named Morty, and a few others that I don't remember right now.
4. Do they engage in a lot of other imaginary play? Does most of it include their imaginary friend or not?
Actually, most of his imaginary play does NOT include his imaginary friends. He does normal stuff with them. They eat together (well, except for the cow that only ate notebooks), play on the playground together, etc. Often, his imaginary friends are able to do things that he is scared of, or they themselves are scary.
His imaginary play is generally fairly, well, unimaginative. It typically involves acting out tv shows or movies, what he did in school that day, or running around in circles pretending to be a train. We suspect that he is somewhere on the autism spectrum though, so keep that in mind.
5. How often is their imaginary friend around? Is it every once in a while or the majority of the time?
When he gets a new one, it is around a lot for a week or two. Generally though, they tend to pop up once in a while.
1. Does your child have an imaginary friend?: Yes! She keeps telling me that the princesses are coming over to play. (Disney Princesses)
2. How long have they had this friend?: Since she turned 3 in May
3. Has it always just been one friend? Do they cycle between imaginary friends?: She cycles through the different ones. But she will "play" with them in her room, and shut her door so they don't get out when she is eating dinner.
4. Do they engage in a lot of other imaginary play? Does most of it include their imaginary friend or not?: Yes! Everything that we do we have to share with the princesses.
5. How often is their imaginary friend around? Is it every once in a while or the majority of the time? : Every now and then. It really depends on her mood. The older she is getting the more often her 'friends' are around.
1. Yes
2. about 9 months
3. Mostly just one friend, although now that DD is going to be a big sister, sometimes her imaginary friend has a sister
4. Yes, DD loves dolls and her toy kitchen, and keeps herself entertained for hours with her imagination. Her imaginary friend is often involved.
5. I would say daily, but not all day. Her imaginary friend is always around to blame bad behavior on, though!
1. Does your child have an imaginary friend?
Yes
2. How long have they had this friend?
Just appeared about a month ago. My DD is 3.
3. Has it always just been one friend? Do they cycle between imaginary friends?
So far it has just been this one imaginary friend.
4. Do they engage in a lot of other imaginary play? Does most of it include their imaginary friend or not?
She doesn't so much play with the friend as describe her day and her family to her friend. Or tell the imaginary friend about activities she has done with other people. She just kind of describes her daily life to the friend.
5. How often is their imaginary friend around? Is it every once in a while or the majority of the time?
Every once and a while, not every day.
The only strange part about the imaginary friend is that my DD has a twin. I was told be another mother that is a child development psychologist that they don't often see imaginary friends with twins. Usually more with a singleton child. So she thought this was very interesting. The funny thing is that her twin (around the same time as the imaginary friend showed up) started walking around saying "Are you talking to me?" I thought she was being funny at first, but now I think it is because she is not sure when her twin sister is talking to her or her twins imaginary friend. The imaginary friend doesn't have a name, she is just talking to someone (not her twin or herself).