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Dr. Karen Majors
Community Psychology Service, Barking and Dagenham
It used to be thought that children with imaginary friends were in the minority. It has sometimes been assumed that children had imaginary friends because they were lonely and lacked real friends. Perhaps this is why some parents and others may show concern when a child has an imaginary friend, particularly once they have started school, and older children and adolescents tend to keep their imaginary friends a secret. Imaginary companions or friends have certainly been a misunderstood phenomenon. There has been surprisingly little research about imaginary friends.
Consequently there has been little information about how many children have imaginary friends, what the imaginary friends are like and why children have them. Recent research has been providing some surprising answers to some of these questions. Firstly, there is now clear evidence that imaginary friends are a common feature in childhood development. Did you have an imaginary friend? Was your imaginary friend your lost twin? Is he or she still there, sharing your life? I wonder if this researcher has thought about this reason for having an imaginary friend? I would guess not. ( Just realised that 60% of the people who completed my research questionnaire in 2008/9 had an imaginary friend.) |
Most kids lose their imaginary friends between their third and fifth birthdays. Sometimes the friends are forgotten, sometimes they're sent on a distant and permanent trip, and other times they "die" in a horrible accident.
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That is interesting, because if the idea of a "friend" is to keep the twin alive, then as the memory pf the twin fades, so will the friend. Experts say that children who speak about their lost twin when they are three or four often do not remember anything about it some years later. It is said that the pre-birth memory gets overwhelmed by other born life experiences. For others of course the memory stays intact. Not sure why that is.
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