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Throughout my childhood, I made many wonderful friendships, but there was one group that left a lasting mark.
K-Pin, Mia, and Hannah have been my best friends since childhood. I often think back to the happy memories we had together. On hot summer days, we would spend hours making wreaths of daisies, looking for unusually shaped clouds, and practicing handstands and side lunges.
We were an inseparable foursome, but we were not ordinary friends. This is because K-Pin, Mia, and Hannah were created entirely from my imagination.
But I didn't create them because I was lonely, shy, or had no friends in real life. In fact, even after so many years have passed, I still don't know where or why they appeared.
Whatever the origins of my friends, research on imaginary friends suggests that I was lucky to have them.
image copyrightIsobel Heywood
friendly milk pack
According to psychologists Naomi Aguiar and Marjorie Taylor of Oregon State University, by the age of seven, two-thirds of children have had an imaginary friend, or an imaginary person they create and interact with or talk to on a regular basis.
Aguiar, a psychologist and author of Imaginary Friends and the People Who Create Them, says: "It's not that these kids have fewer friends than other kids. They have the same number of reciprocal friendships as kids who don't have imaginary friends. What the data actually shows is that they're just like other kids in almost every way."
He continues: “The reason so many kids create imaginary friends is because it’s fun and kids love the social interaction.”
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But research shows that these creatures can have far greater benefits than simply providing companionship.
Children who have imaginary friends are better at creative storytelling than children who do not have imaginary friends. They are also less shy, more interested in fantasy, and have better attention spans. You may use less digital screens and your imagery ability to conjure up images in your mind may be more vivid.
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Each imaginary friend is unique to the child who created it, Aguiar explains, and is often custom-made to suit the constantly changing whims and desires throughout childhood.
One of his favorite examples is the story of a girl whose friend was an invisible milk carton. The milk carton taught the girl what it was like to live as a non-human, and the girl taught the milk carton what it was like to live as a human, Aguiar says.
My own imaginary friends appeared when I was about three years old.
Hannah and Mia were characters inspired by two girls from a ballet movie. They never walked, just jumped, leaped, and spun in a continuous series of ballet movements, wearing identical pale pink leotards, tutus, and ballet shoes.
But I have no idea where K-Pin came from.
He was older than the three of us and had an air of sophistication symbolized by the gray clouds that followed him. He would usually take a step back and offer thoughtful advice when needed.
The process of learning the minds of others
“For me, the most important part of an imaginary companion is creating a mind and interacting with it,” says Paige Davis, associate professor of developmental psychology and psychopathology at the University of Leeds, UK.
Some are based on real people or anthropomorphic objects, while others are embodied in the form of animals or fantasy creatures.
Marta Jimenez-Dasier and colleagues at the University of Valencia, Spain, found that children aged 4 to 6 who had imaginary friends scored higher on tests of theory of mind and emotional understanding than children who did not have imaginary friends. This means that these children can understand that other people have beliefs, desires, and intentions that are different from their own.
It is not clear whether this emotional understanding is the result of raising an imaginary companion, or, conversely, whether children who are more interested in the minds of others are more likely to create an imaginary companion.
Practice Friendship
Davis and his colleagues investigated whether the benefits of imaginary friends extend beyond neurotypical children.
Although children on the autism spectrum are successful in forming and maintaining friendships, their approach to communication, social understanding, and emotional understanding often differs from that of their neurotypical peers, which can impact their relationships, Davis says.
They also engage in imaginative play in slightly different ways, according to Davis, often engaging in activities such as drawing instead of role-playing.
Taken together, these points suggest that they may be less prone to creating imaginary friends.
But when Davis interviewed parents of 124 children on the autism spectrum, he found that 49% of participants said their children had created an imaginary friend between the ages of 1 and 11.
Experts say that these partnerships create opportunities for children on the autism spectrum to practice social interactions that they might otherwise find difficult.
“Creating an imaginary companion can be a risk-free venue for exploration,” says Tracy Gleason, a psychology professor at Wellesley College in the US.
“Parents of children on the autism spectrum who created imaginary friends reported that their children felt their children had a higher level of theory of mind development and were significantly more interested in spending time with others and making new friends than parents of children without imaginary friends,” Davis said.
Imaginary friendships can help children begin to set their own boundaries, understand their comfort levels, learn how to navigate difficult conversations, and even establish common ground for solving problems.
Aguiar gives the example of a child at school whose friend kept taking away his favorite truck. He says the child's imaginary friend will probably always take away the favorite truck, too.
Through this imaginary friend, the child can yell, apologize, and find mutual agreement.
“It’s very developmentally appropriate because the child takes control of the problem-solving process,” Aguiar says.
Lifelong friends?
“Many people tend to think that [imaginary friends] are associated with infancy and have nothing to do with later development,” says Gleeson. “But it also appears to be a phenomenon in adolescence and adulthood.”
In a recent study currently undergoing peer review, Gleason found that a significant proportion of adults have imaginary friends. Of the 56 participants who answered that they had an imaginary friend, 68% said they made a partner before the age of 20, and about 30% of the participants answered that they made an imaginary friend in adulthood.
According to Gleason, the reasons adults create imaginary friendships range from companionship and social support to intellectual simulation, motivation, affection, emotional intimacy, advice, solving moral problems, and light fun to relieve the stress of everyday life in adulthood.
“It’s a little bit more to do with playing your role in society, being part of a group and doing a good job,” Gleeson said, suggesting that imaginary friends could help adults practice work-related scenarios.
He adds, “It also helps you grow and develop while having the opportunity to be and live the life you want to be.”
Some imaginary friends we say goodbye to at the end of childhood, but others stay by our side and lend a helping hand at every stage of our lives.
K-Pin, Mia, and Hannah have been great companions, perhaps helping me recognize developmental questions that I didn't even realize I needed to answer at the time.
But around the age of nine, as I approached adolescence, K-Pin, Mia, and Hannah disappeared and I was left standing alone.
When I think of us huddled together in the garden, looking at the clouds harmonizing with each other, a warmth fills my heart.
We know that Hannah and Mia's impressive pirouette moves are now a thing of the past.
As for K-Fin, it's hard to know if he'll come back. At some point in the future, there may come a time when you need his guidance. And if that happens, I feel like he will be by my side with a gray cloud of wisdom hanging behind him.
