Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Imaginary Friends

How many of you have children with imaginary friends? My son has had imaginary Raptor friends for the past couple years. He has written stories about them. In fact, his raptor world is very highly detailed and developed. Funny thing was on Wednesday, DS was talking to me about his friends and what they were doing. Some of the names were familiar to me as RL friends. I figured that the new names were more friends at school. I was quite surprised when a couple of his friends came to the door a bit later to help take care of the raptors. He has added a new level to his world with more people and even interpersonal conflict.
I'm not concerned about the imaginary friends, but it really was a bit of a shock to realize that they weren't playground friends lol

LOL!

How old is your DS?

DD (4 yr old) has imaginary friends as well. She used to have one (who apparently does not want to play with her anymore ) who had a cock as a pet, had an adress and even family!
Now, I see her talking to people and then she answers back puting voices and gestures, but I have not asked her much detail about those 'friends'. Maybe I should...

Oh, yes, we have imaginary friends. The big ones are two mice called Mousey and Mouse Number Two, and then a group of seven ninjas called the Thunder Brothers. Ds5 is Thunder Brother 1; I'm Thunder Brother 2.

They've been turning up somewhat less frequently lately ... Oh, and he's big into personification. He has a lovey, Big Bunny, who he's had from birth, and often Big Bunny is reported as having feelings that would be very appropriate for ds at the time.

Enjoy! The raptor world sounds like a lot of fun!

Sophia had a group of imaginary friends--the Musketeers (as in the 3 Musketeers). It started when she was about 3. There were actually big Musketeers and small Musketeers. Once I walked into her room and she was sitting on her bed, looking towards her closet. I asked what she was doing, and she replied, "The small Musketeers are putting on a play for me and the big Musketeers. So we are sitting here, watching them. They are SOOOO funny!"

It went well for a year or so, until the Musketeers were telling her to do bad things...whenever she got in trouble, she would say that the Musketeers had told her to do it. So we had to have a talk with the Musketeers, and since they didn't want to comply, we had to ask them to leave the house. Sophia decided that she had to ask them to leave so that they wouldn't give her bad suggestions any more.

Oh yes, she is 14 now, and is a great creative writer and poet, with a vivid imagination. So enjoy the imaginary friend days. (And my mother says that my imaginary friend was a "horse-mule" and she has a picture of me running down the street, at age 4, with a string flying behind me as I took my "horse-mule" for a run!)

LOL, Kathi! My ds5's lovey, Big Bunny, also has had transgressions in behavior; he's needed several time-outs. These timeouts involve sitting outside ds's room, in sight, while ds is trying to go to sleep. Big Bunny typically shapes up pretty quick.

That's cute! DD3 has an imaginary sister that doesn't live with us. Her preschool teacher cornerned me one day and asked me about it, because she shared this with such conviction. She has invented a place called rainbow land where she has a number of fictional friends and animals. She has some unicorns there. For a while, every time we got in the car, she'd say "Can we go to rainbow land NOW?". I've told her, when she can give me the directions to get there, we can go.

We don't know that DD3 is gifted (although we're suspect), but she is a funny one!

lol, DS is 8 going on 9. He has had imaginary friends pretty much all his life but the raptors took over a couple years ago. When I was baking cookies last night one of them was sitting on my head telling me how to ice them...too bad I didn't hear it, because I didn't ice the angels with purple faces I had to explain to DS that I don't speak raptor. He has to translate.

Yes, various raptors have been in time out due to instigating poor choices with DS. He has to stay with them and make sure they behave.

Thanks for sharing the stories

DS never had any imaginary friends that I know about, but weren't we suprized in Kindy, when the picture he drew of "his family" included a baby brother. The teacher was well aquainted with this brother. DH and I were the last to know. You have to watch these kids....

I found out from my dd's teacher last week that my aunt had gone to Russia. My dd told her teacher all about the trip. Apparently my aunt brought my daughter a book on black lacquer boxes that she had taken to school to read during her English reading time. (I bought the book in Chicago.)

My dd used to believe I could "talk" to fairies. She would give me messages for them and believed they were all around us. She was about 3.