What to Do If Your Child Has an Imaginary Friend
Imaginary Friends
Many children have an imaginary playmate. The playmate may be a person or an animal. It has been found that 65% of three- and four-year-olds have imaginary playmates. These friends usually appear when a child is two or three years old, and sometimes stay for years. Parents may worry, thinking their child is losing touch with reality. Although such behaviour would be a cause for concern in adulthood, it is entirely normal in childhood.
Research has found that children with imaginary playmates are less aggressive than other children, more open to cooperation, laugh more, have greater powers of concentration, get bored less easily and have more advanced language skills (Pines, 1978).
The function of imaginary friends is the same as that of games played with real toys. They help children understand and take control of the world, and cope with their fears. One day your child may be having tea with their imaginary friend and making sense of the adult world; the next they may tell you their imaginary friend has grown up, that its heart is no longer beating, and that it has died. In that case, they may be trying to understand growing up and death, exploring something that frightens them from a position of control. Stopping a child who has an imaginary friend, telling them there is no such thing or not to tell lies, will do them no good.
About the author
Clinical Psychologist Orlit Linet Haklı — After completing a double major in Psychology and Sociology at Koç University, I graduated from the Clinical Psychology programme at Bahçeşehir University. For three years I worked with the Solidarity Association with Refugees and Migrants, a UNICEF project, conducting individual psychotherapy and group art therapy sessions with refugee children and adolescents. I currently provide parental counselling at a private practice in Kadıköy on the Anatolian side of Istanbul, working with children, adolescents and adults using psychodynamic psychotherapy, play therapy and art therapy.