To much imaginary friend play

[Anonymous]

My son is 3.5 and he has a very vivid imagination. He has one imaginary friend he plays with A LOT. He will spend an hour walking in a circle, making hand gestures and having a back and forth conversation with his “friend.” His preschool teachers brought up that sometimes he has difficulty completing projects or loses focus during an activity because he starts having conversations with his “friend.” They said he is very bright, and on target in all academic areas. They said on the playground he will start out playing with his peers but that it’s always short lived because he will check out of the play and start playing with his “friend.” Would you be concerned? How much do this is normal?

[Anonymous]

My son also had imaginary friends at the age and would get very engaged his own world. It may be his way of "taking a break" from processing a lot of stimulus around him. My son started to outgrow it by four, but still had a hard time engaging socially with peers at times. He would just get overwhelmed easily. By five, he completely blossomed socially and gets along well with everyone. Now at eight he is Mr. Social. I would keep an eye on it but not worry yet.

[Anonymous]

That's adorable. I don't have anything to add, but how cute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son also had imaginary friends at the age and would get very engaged his own world. It may be his way of "taking a break" from processing a lot of stimulus around him. My son started to outgrow it by four, but still had a hard time engaging socially with peers at times. He would just get overwhelmed easily. By five, he completely blossomed socially and gets along well with everyone. Now at eight he is Mr. Social. I would keep an eye on it but not worry yet.

Same for us.

[Anonymous]

I would not be concerned. Our pediatrician has said it can be a sign of intelligence.

Our DD had SO MANY imaginary friends. She's now 6 and just a social butterfly (with no more imaginary friends at all).

[Anonymous]

I had a slew of imaginary friends and quite a developed world for them. My family treated them like they were real too. I knew they knew better but it was so much fun to “believe.”

Eventually, kids outgrow it and rarely get that back.

[Anonymous]

My mom decided I was playing too much with my imaginary friend around that age and decided to break that habit for me. She did it in an embarrassing (and cruel imo) way, and while I don’t remember the interaction, I remember feeling ashamed whenever I wanted to do imaginary play after that. She loved telling that story of how she finally got me to quit playing with my imaginary friend into my adulthood, and even told my kids. One of them asked why she was mean to me and didn’t want me to have an imaginary friend, so she mostly stopped telling the story after that.

If it’s interfering with his daily life, it might be a problem or become one eventually, but at that age kids do a lot of quirky stuff. If it’s interfering with schoolwork, it’s probably because he’s bored with whatever they’re doing. I bet whatever is going on in his head is more fun than a craft or worksheet. There’s so much time in his life to buckle down and do work, I’d be reluctant to make an issue of it in preschool.

If you do decide to try to limit or put an end to his imaginary friend, be gentle about it.

[Anonymous]

Former teacher here - I don’t see a problem with this. He is most likely very creative and smart. I think that is really cute!

[Anonymous]

Op here, I’m not worried he has an imaginary friend, and neither are his teachers. I more worried that he doesn’t develop friendships and play with other kids, only his imaginary ones. I feel like social skills are important at this age. Isn’t that the point of preschool?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son is 3.5 and he has a very vivid imagination. He has one imaginary friend he plays with A LOT. He will spend an hour walking in a circle, making hand gestures and having a back and forth conversation with his “friend.” His preschool teachers brought up that sometimes he has difficulty completing projects or loses focus during an activity because he starts having conversations with his “friend.” They said he is very bright, and on target in all academic areas. They said on the playground he will start out playing with his peers but that it’s always short lived because he will check out of the play and start playing with his “friend.” Would you be concerned? How much do this is normal?

I've been suspecting that my 16 y.o. has Asperger's (now called High Functioning Autism) and watched some videos on it. One of the videos went into the imaginary friend situation that lots of Aspie kids have. Go to youtube and search Tony Attwood; he's big in the field and his videos are very informative (and the video talking about the imaginary friend was one of his)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here, I’m not worried he has an imaginary friend, and neither are his teachers. I more worried that he doesn’t develop friendships and play with other kids, only his imaginary ones. I feel like social skills are important at this age. Isn’t that the point of preschool?

Is he bored? That’s what I did and why. How much social time does he have with other kids outside of class? Also, maybe try to increase the amount of time he has playdates with other kids or put him in a particularly engaging activity with other kids, like dance.

[Anonymous]

4 yo has imaginary friends who have formed a rock band together. We get involved in the story line with him--it's really a lot of fun.

I wouldn't expect other kids to do that, but you might try it for a bit to see if it helps him get his imaginary friend-ing out of the way at home instead of at school.