My DD, age 3 and 9 months has had two imaginary friends for about the last year, called Alice and William.
The usual scenario, we've to set a place at the table for them, they get the blame for little wrongdoings, etc. When a drive past houses, it's pointing out the window and 'Oh William lives in that house there!"
My DH's parental grandfather was called William (Billy) and his maternal grandmother was called Alice. (Although i think she may have got the name Alice from Alice and Wonderland). One evening, DD said that William had left that evening to go back to his own house. I asked where he lived and she said 'in college'. Turns out said grandfather worked in the accounts department of a university!
so myself and my husband kind of jokingly thought it was a ghost. But DD said her imaginary friends were children anyway. TBH, I think they might be extensions of herself and she like to play with words, language and stories and make things up about them.
My question is this, should we concerned now due to the following: We've always kind of 'accepted' the imaginary friends and allowed her to talk about them, etc, as I reckoned it was normal at this age. She is in a montessori, seems clever for her age, seems to have lots of friends there and is doing well. But lately she's been saying she likes to play on her own or 'with William'. we just came back from holidays where she met all her cousins. We had a great time, mostly she got on great with everyone, but i notice my DD can half little fights with her cousins if they don't play games her way, etc.
I should mention I also have 1 year old ID twin DSs, and the imaginary friends came along around the same time they did. I read a lot about imaginary friends coming at a time of change, etc.
The other night, things got a but weird (and trippy to be honest!) when DD was telling us that William was beside us in his flying car when we were driving back from the montessori. She said he gave her 'white peas' to eat. She said 'you can buy them in Spar but only William can see them hidden behind the carrots'. She also said she wasn't going to share them with us!
It sounded a bit (no offence anyone) but mad. Is it time to ring a child psychologist or is all this perfectly normal? Should we take the hard line and tell her to stop the whole pretend friend thing as maybe we've encouraged it?
Sorry for long rant/story but couldn't be more concise.