Oh, I do miss my oldest's imaginary friends. We did call them her I.F. She had so many! I think the peak was probably from before 2 to 3 or so. We believe that her sister becoming more interactive took over the IF.
They were all related to one another, had backstories, got married, had imaginary babies, etc. The most confusing part is that she had at least 4 Ticos at some point, one was based on Dora's character; one was a green-nosed moose.
She is bilingual (we only speak Sp. at home) as were most of her IF, but one of them only spoke English. Usually she spoke to them in Sp. if she was with us, and in Eng. if with her nanny. IT cracked us up, however, when she was having conversations in Sp. with us (say at the dinner table), and then turned and spoke in English to IF.
A few tidbits on IF:
- much more common in gifted dc
- more common in highly verbal kids (these 2 combined make me think, in our dd's case for example, she had no real peers who spoke nearly as well as she did....)
- many fiction writers report having had IF
- more common in only children.
- more prevalent in girls than boys.
Forgot to say 2 things. 1) the time bending is hilarious! 2) Enjoy them while they last. While I have heard of many kids losing their friends over a specific incident (getting lost on vacation, dying, etc.) our DD's simply slowly disappeared. We suddenly realized they were gone.
Last edited by Mam; 09/02/09 03:37 PM.
