Imaginary friend - how far should I take it??

[earthtomummy]

DS is 5 in May. As I've posted before he's being assessed at the mo. - poss. dyspraxic, def. AS traits. He has a new imaginary friend whose name is v. close to that of his best friend. DS is currently rather obssessed by best friend and v. upset when he isn't at school. He doesn't really interact with anyone else at school and poor best friend is, I think, wanting to expand who he plays with but is being loyal to my DS who won't let him. Anyway, this new imaginary friend is here and apparently has to be given tea properly -real eggs etc. and needs to be bathed :DS and friend 1st, girls after - which means 2 baths. I'm not sure I want to take it that far. DS's imaginative world is v. intense - DH spent 2.5 hrs on the way to, during and post swimming lesson with DS pretending to be scoobydoo and leaping into his arms and licking him! He refused to call DH anything but Shaggy or to be called anything but scooby. I'm frequently called upon to spend whole days as a whale / giant pacific octopus / anaconda (well a rock for the anaconda to slither over)...I love his imagination and we do play along with it as it is a real strength of his, but I can see other kids staring at him sometimes because it can be q. odd. What would you do?

[Eve2005]

hey, no personal experiance so just bumping this up for you, he sounds great though!

i know it's differant with special needs but lots of kids have imaginary friends and it doesn't do any harm to play along.... sorry i'm no help

[SoBlue]

Iv had a bit of this and its good to be imajinative but not to let it turn into another obsession. So i would limit the time spent doing it. Something along the lines shaggy is tired now so he wants to have a rest shall me and you go/do ..... or i think imajinary friend isnt hungry or told me he isn't just to try and take a bit of control over it. HTH

[busybusybee]

Hi Earthtomummy

I can sympathise with you on this as my son is possibly AS. I also work with someone who has Downs syndrome and a ridicoulously overactive imagination!

She believes that she can talk to spirits and that they talk to her. They have names. She talks about murders, werewolves etc all the time and is in fact rarely connected with reality. She is 26

Most of the time I agree passively with what she says and then distract her. I dont entertain her imagination at all. If I do I start listening to too much of what she says I start feeling rather odd!

Your ds does sound like a lovely boy. TBH I think I would play along as long as it didnt upset me. If I found his behaviour upsetting, or time consuming then I would not entertain it. ie I wouldnt mind laying a place at the table for the friend one day, but I wouldnt want to do it again.

Hope that helps.