CHILDHOOD Imaginary friends can be a comfort for youngsters

The companions allow young children to use their creativity.
By NADIA LERNER
STAMFORD ADVOCATE
When the 21/2-year-old brought imaginary friend, Violet, to his Stamford, Conn., nursery school, teacher Alix Brown went along with the fantasy.
"I had no trouble," recalls Brown, explaining that the tyke's fanciful chum was a character from the animated movie, "The Incredibles." "His whole story about Violet was very logical," she says. "It was like 'Did you see her? She's running around the room.' And occasionally, you couldn't sit in a chair because Violet was there." If one of her own children had an imaginary friend, observes the mother of three, she believes there would be sound reasoning behind its creation.
"I think it brings comfort, and I see no need to mess with that," says Brown. "Like a blankey." Jerome Brodlie, child/family psychologist and chairman of Greenwich, Conn., Hospital's department of psychology, says imaginary companions not only allow young children to use their creativity, they provide a built-in friend.
Imaginary friends are more commonly seen among young girls, he explains. That's because they tend to be more creative and not as involved in team sports as boys, giving them more alone time to play.
Instill authority
Imaginary friends also help instill a bit of authority in their creators, he says. "It puts the child in a situation where they are in control of this imaginary friend. Kids don't have a lot of control over most things in their life." When Dan Stone was 3, he introduced his imaginary frog, Cricket, to the family.
"I found Cricket in a strawberry field where he had lost his family," says Stone, now 16 and a junior in high school. Cricket became the center of a major issue when Stone was about to enter preschool and was worried his friend would be left behind.
"I started crying because we hadn't paid for Cricket," he says. "My mom took me to talk to the principal, and he said he would take Cricket for free." Cricket disappeared when Dan was 5, recollects his psychologist mom, Betsy Stone. Two of her three youngsters had imaginary friends.
"They are relatively common," she says, "and the best way to deal with them is to welcome them into your home."
Stone says imaginary friends are not a sign of immaturity, but an approach young children take to feel safe when parents are not around. "I think imaginary friends are a very creative way to master fear." Children tend to give them up by age 5 or 6 when they understand that things unseen are not gone forever.
"If mom isn't there, she still exists and will not change," says Betsy Stone. "There is a sense at 5 or 6 that things have an inherent permanence -- and I don't have to come up with magical ways for them to stick around." Stone's daughter, Deborah, now 23 and a Spanish teacher in Montgomery County, Md., preceded her brother's imaginary companion with one named the Royal Minister.
"I think I stole the Royal Minister from 'Mister Rogers,' (PBS-TV show) she says of the palm-sized buddy who slept on the handle of her trundle bed. "I had him for a very long time, and I remember him from probably when I was 6 or 7. I don't know when he left. He just stopped." Barbara Goldstein, a clinical social worker at Stamford's Child Guidance Center who also has a private practice, recalls the imaginary friend of a child she worked with.
Reassurance
The little boy, in foster care, was constantly reassuring his pretend buddy that he wouldn't be taken away.
"He would hold this imaginary friend very close to him; the child projected his anxiety and also helped to soothe the imaginary friend. It was like soothing himself.
"An imaginary friend is often what the child needs it to be," Goldstein said. Siblings should be told not to tease the child, but to go along with it.
However, if a child still prefers playing with his imaginary friend rather than with real friends once he gets older, it is a cause for worry, says Stone.
"A child who retreats to an imaginary friend, in exclusion of real relationships, is really struggling with different issues," she says. At that point, parents should consult a mental health professional.