Messages By: paranormal

Quote From: jettav

My 4 year old has imaginary friends as well. What she does is, she changes her voice, she uses her own voice for herself and then when asking a question or just saying something to her imaginary friend, she uses a different voice for the other person. she too has imagined being some one else but not to the extreme that she refuses to be herself, I think getting your daughter involved in preschool or something may help her and though I believe this is probably a phase, I wouldn't worry about it but yet moniter it and maybe document what she is saying and doing. My daughter has a slight disorder where she pulls her hair, when she first started this, we were really worried but didn't know what to do but then when we found out that there is actually a disorder with this, I started documenting and communicating with her like asking her what she was thinking about, and why she just pulled her hair, in her own words, she told me that it "comforts" her, she does this when a change occurs in her life or she is over whelmed/over stimulated. She is a bit of perfectionist and likes things a certain way. after finding all this out, we use only positive reinforcement and try directing her to a new activity or whatever the case may be. We also talk to her about other ways of dealing with the situation. Thankfully it isn't a problem like it was as we discovered it at a very early age are appropiately dealing with it. If it makes you feel better, talk to your doctor about it just to get some professional input, it certainly helped in our case but in all honesty, I think it is probably a phase and I personally wouldn't stress over it, communicate with her and see what she is thinking about at the time, interact with her and listen to her as she plays and talks.

Quote From: mrsmootz

My daughter Valerie will be 3 years old in a few weeks. For the past few months, she has pretended to have an imaginary friend - with a twist.  You see, instead of having an imaginary friend, Valerie IS the imaginary friend. She says she is "Timmy" and that "Valerie" is someplace else - usually in the forest picking flowers and sometimes on her lap or sitting with her in the car. This is disturbing to me, as I don't know if she's being unusually creative or just kind psychotic in this behavior. Is she casting off her own identify for some reason? And how can I get her to be herself again?

Quote From: jb7ctx

My sister who is younger than me, used to have imaginary friends also. She was about 3-4 years old at the time. Their names were "Frankie" and "Johnny". One was red and the other was green. She would constantly talk to these "invisible" people and play with them. She would aske them questions and according to her, they would answere her back. It was phase she went through. My toddlers ages 4 and 5 do the same thing at times. It is only their own imagination being creative. One thing that helped to get my sister from having imanginary friends was that my mom took her to play with other "real" kids. Eventually her invisible friends went somewhere else. I think it is just a phase they go through and they are just being creative in their imagination. My sister was the baby of the family and she had no one to play with so she made up her own friends. Hope this helps some.

Quote From: azanco

My 5 year old (Sabrina) used to have imaginary friends then became her own imaginery friend - Cher.  Cher would come over and she would leave.  She started doing this around 3 1/2.  It started getting a little frustrating and I became concerned as well.  I started talking to her about Sabrina and all the great things does and that I missed her while she was gone (while Cher visited)and that I loved her, then Sabrina would come back.  Cher's visit came for shorter intervals.  Now at 5, Cher is often talked about but rarely visits!!  Good luck.