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Vox readers ask, “Why do kids have imaginary friends?”
Amidst the Covid Lockdown slump, when daycare was closed and social life felt like a distant memory, I tried to catch Toddler at the time.
As he became known, the Big Bat is a Mexican freetail bat. I'm at riska picture of the wildlife my grandparents gave us. For months in 2020, my older child (my only child at the time) asked me to see this photo several times a day. He greeted the big bat, spoke to him, and offered him a refreshing drink at least once. During his time in isolation, Big Cow was his friend.
This week, when I spoke to Tracy Gleason, a psychology professor at Wellesley College who studies imaginary friends, or she and other experts sometimes spoke to their imaginary peers. While adults often think of these peers as children talking (this explains their prevalence in horror films), in fact, imagined friends are objects that children “animate and personify” and can be treated as real, Gleason said.
The object can be a stuffed animal, a doll, or more unusual. “I've heard of one of the small cans of tomato paste and a child who was a very close friend,” Gleeson told me.
It may sound strange, but imaginary friends are very common. A study published in 2004 reported that 65% of children had at least one imaginary friend by the age of seven.
As for why children have imagined peers, Gleason says it could be a way for children to overcome the complexities of social life in a safe, low stakes context. However, there is another simpler reason why children play with their imaginary peers. Naomi Agier did her research and co-authored books on the phenomenon.
“The main role that imaginary friends play in the lives of many children is just for fun and entertainment,” she said. “The kids do it because it's fun.”
Social benefits of imaginary friendship
Imaginary friends are most common in childhood, but even middle schoolers and adults can have them, Gleason said.
These companions can take a variety of forms – a 2004 study looked at 100 6- and 7-year-olds, with 57% of their imaginary friends being human, 41% being animals, and one being “a human who can turn them into the animal their child wants.”
In a study published in 2017 by Aguiar and other researchers, one nine-year-old boy reported that he had a “power swipe” but was a friend of an “invisible Siberian tiger” who needed “rainy night comfort.” Another child had a stuffed animal named Pony. The third child was friends with the “invisible milk carton,” who described it as “very kind and kind of conscience.”
“I learned a lot about milk and milk,” the child said of their relationship.
Experts say that fictional friends (yes, even milk cartons) can be that children are heartfelt and heartfelt in the confusion of social relationships. Gleason says friendship can be particularly scary because they are spontaneous and open-ended. Your parents will always be yours, but “Your friends don't have to be your friends.”
Friendship also has rules and dynamics that are different from family relationships, and these rules may not be clearly defined. “You can imagine why someone wants to practice that imaginary version,” Gleason said.
Certainly, imagined friends may fight or refuse to play with their actual child counterparts. In Aguiar's study, one of the nine-year-old girls described a “small invisible boy” who was usually “kind and generous” but sometimes pulled her hair. Another child had a gorilla friend who sometimes opposed whether they should go to the park.
When an imaginary friend is a little difficult, “What does that mean when the child doesn't want to play with you?” Gleason said. “What does that mean when someone means to you? How do you respond?”
There's no reason to worry if your child has an imaginary friend, experts say. Often those friendships are a really fun way to play.
Imaginary friendships are developmentally normal, experts say – these friendships were seen as signs of loneliness and other problems, but experts say that children with imaginary friends are now less likely to suffer from mental health issues than children without such friendships.
Children who have experienced trauma may use their imaginary peers to deal with it. Children who have been sexually abused in particular sometimes invent friends who can serve as parents and guardians, Aguiar said.
One study found that Japanese children were playing with anthropomorphized objects during the pandemic than they had beforehand, suggesting an increase in the role of these imaginary peers during quarantine (no word about the role of the big bat).
But overall, there's no reason to worry about whether your child has an imaginary friend, experts say. Often those friendships are a really fun way to play.
Christine Nuguen, a mother of two in California, said she has been friends with “Hamy” since she was four years old. Hammy is a stuffed hamster, not only rude and vulgar (he is known to eat “poop crumbs”), but also “wealthy.” Nguyen's daughter once made a video of him bouncing off a play bed.
Hammy takes risks and lives a big life. He was skydiving and at one point he got his BBL. Hammy also has to scream at people on car trips and sometimes be exiled to the dashboard.
Nguyen says her daughter is “always a mischievous person, she loves to test boundaries and feels that Hammy is a way to test boundaries more.”
“Children are growing up and don't have a lot of autonomy,” Agier pointed out. “There are a lot of things that we have to do in a certain way at certain times.”
But with an imaginary friend, “You have a complete creative license to create anything you want for yourself,” Aguiar said. Imaginary relationships are one of the few areas of life in which children “have complete freedom to do whatever they want.”
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