Imaginary Friends

I want to send out a belated Happy Birthday to Molly Daniels!!!!

Imaginary friends. Did you have one? Did or does your child have one? My oldest son had two actually…well three, maybe, if you count Jesus. He had a male friend named Jacob Trent, a dog named Peddy, and he often talked with Jesus. Sometimes he and Jesus would plant flowers together in the yard. When asked where his imaginary friends lived, he insisted that they lived with God.

The internet says imaginary friends are a figment of a child’s imagination and often act as guardians and/or protectors. My son’s imaginary friends had elaborate personalities and behaviors. They were always present and sometimes I would have to set an extra plate at dinner for Jacob Trent. Once I remember being told that I was about to sit on Jacob Trent, so I had to ask him to move. Mostly though, his imaginary friends weren’t a bother, except for the one time my son told me that sometimes Jacob Trent didn’t like me very much. I always wondered if that was his—being my son—way of saying he didn’t like me at times. *chuckles* I told him that Jacob Trent was welcome to go back home and not return.

One theory is that children with imaginary friends retain knowledge faster and develop better language skills than those children without them. It’s thought that this is because children with imaginary friends have more linguistic practice from conducting extra conversations with imaginary friends rather than solely with their peers. This may have some merit in my opinion. My oldest son was talking early, while I never thought my youngest was going to ever talk, but my youngest never had an imaginary friend either.

The internet also suggests that maybe imaginary friends aren’t imaginary at all, but spirits or ghosts. My son often saw people that weren’t there. Once he pointed out the window and asked if that “black man and white man” could come in and play with him. When I looked out the window and saw no one and told him that, he jabbed his pudgy finger on the window and insisted that they were “right there”. He clearly could see them, while I could not. And that was not his only occurrence seeing people that weren’t there.

He’s eleven now and has outgrown “imaginary friends” and doesn’t see people that aren’t there any more either. But, I still wonder. Were his imaginary friends just that—imaginary—or were they really ghosts or spirits or something else that were there entertaining him? I don’t know and probably will never know, but it makes me wonder.

So, what do you think? Are imaginary friends just imaginary or are they something else, something more? What have been your experiences with imaginary friends?

I hope everyone has an awesome weekend!

Gracen Miller