Imaginary friends

[caitlinm38231]

Hi, was just wondering if anyone else has a child who has elaborate imaginary friends, a whole family of them with back stories ect.
my daughter is 5, she was speech delayed and didn’t start talking till 3 and a half. She was being assessed for autism, due to lack of social skills, sensory issues, and stims. If she is on the spectrum she is highly functioning, and since starting school she has flourished in social situations and is doing really well with school work, and has made a couple friendships. But she is still most content when playing on her own with all her imaginary friends.
it started with just one imaginary friend named Emily who she named and started talking about to us when she was about 4. But I have a feeling Emily was on the go before that, but as she wasn’t talking, we didn’t really know.
since then she has made a huge family. Who she can talk about in depth.
She now has 3 Emily’s that she plays with. They are all the same person, but at different ages. So emily 1 is 3, emily 2 is 6 and emily 3 is a teenager. She also has a lady she calls her “great mum” who is really just her imaginary mum (who lets her watch scary movies and eat ice cream before bed ect all the things I don’t let her do 😂)
she has 2 sisters, both called Thea, one is really nice and one is bad. Theres also a couple boys, called Robbie and Cracker, who my 4 year old son has adopted as his friends, and he will often involve himself in her play through playing with these friends. There’s are a number of other friends too.

im a child care worker myself, and have never come across a child who has imaginary friends like this, and just wondered if any one else has had a similar experience.

my D is very imaginative, she doesn’t have interest in screens, iPads ect. She would much rather be outside or in her room, throwing parties with her imaginary friends, going to imaginary school with them ect.
on occasion she’s had fall outs with her friends that will genuinely upset her. And I will need to comfort her and also speak with the imaginary mum to resolve the issues.

it’s a really beautiful and interesting thing, but i don’t have any one else to talk to it about, who’s child does the same.

This is really interesting! When she is older it would be amazing if she could write their stories.

How absolutely beautiful. I have very vivid memories of my own imaginary friends from childhood and the games we used to play. As an adult, if I had nothing to do other than lay in the sun in my back garden, I could still while away a good few hours in my imagination, although I don't actually act out my thoughts anymore 🤣
She'll never be bored with such a full internal world!

I had lots of imaginary friends as a child. Until quite old I think.

Me, I'm also autistic. My DD (autistic) and a lot of non social children in her SEN school. I've never felt loneliness and my now adult, DD, says she hasn't either. I can live in my head for hours, travel delays etc don't bother me. I can sit with nothing and be fine.

I've not come across so much detail before but I wonder if the difference is partly in the extent to which she is sharing. She obviously trusts you a great deal and has "invited you in". I wouldn't necessarily expect a child to share the full extent of all the characters with a child care worker.

My DD is late diagnosed autistic and as a child it was striking that she was completely unbothered by toys. Her play was all in her head. I gave her Lego, she'd pick up a single piece and use that as a boat or a person or a flower - possibly all 3 within 5 mins. She didn't tell me the complex characters you're describing but I can definitely relate to that immersion in an internal world. I've met autistic teens who are off to uni to study creative writing, and autistic adults who are English teachers. She sounds delightful and bright.

I’m not autistic but I invented countless characters in my head as a small child, all with detailed back stories, distinct personalities etc. I imagined the conversations I’d have with them and so on. Children, adults, magical beings, good, bad. I can still remember some of them. The main difference was that I was a lot more reluctant to share this with anyone else.

Unsurprisingly, I write fiction as a hobby.

I used to be like this as a child. I had one off imaginary friends from the age of about 3, which I can’t remember but my mother has told me about. But between the ages of around 6 and 9 I had a very elaborate imaginary world, with a whole host of consistent characters and a plot that developed over time and which I could still tell you all about today!

I think it stopped aged about 9 because that’s when I really got into reading and immersed myself in the fantasy worlds of CS Lewis and Tolkein instead.

ETA: I’m not autistic, or at least not diagnosed as such! I think I was just a very imaginative child who had the good fortune to be sheltered from real-world worries, read stories to every day, grew up without TV and had loads of free time to play (although mostly alone).

My son who is 4 has an imaginary friend called Dotty who is a squirrel. Her age also changes and she has various family who pop in and out including her baby and her sister. I'm always amazed by the depth and breath of the stories he tells about her, and whilst it can be related to what we've been doing, equally it can be completely unrelated to our world and I have no idea where he's got it from. Sometimes when he describes what she's doing it's so vivid it feels like he can see her in the room. She's been around a long while. It doesn't particularly worry me, I had quite a rich inner world as a child so perhaps that's why!

Yes I’ve seen it before in autistic children, usually girls. They give their dolls/ teddy’s names, personalities, roles and some believe their toys have feelings.

My daughter started with one imaginary friend when she was 2 3/4. She had a name and job. I had to push her on the swings at playgrounds. She got really upset if other children sat on top of her when she was swinging! Then the imaginary animals arrived. So many of them. I had to lift them in and out of cars. Help them ride on the pushchair with her and make sure I didn't accidentally sit on one on the sofa. Do you know how difficult it is to avoid sitting on an imaginary invisible animal and how cross a three year old gets when you do! She's 17 now. The animals are long gone but interestingly we are waiting on an autism assessment

I had a whole host of imaginary friends when I was younger (also Autistic).

DD had an imaginary friend from 3 until 7, she was in covid lock down 4.5 and I think it was a part of why her imaginary friend was so central. She had great stories to tell about her friend, where he came from what his family where like etc. Sometimes he was naughty and I had to "ring" his parents to pick him up!
I miss her little friend and their adventures.
DD has no neurodiversity, learning issues etc. Still has a great imagination

I had an imaginary friend as a child. I was 4 years older than my siblings and DM had bad PND after I was born so Dgran helped a lot with us a lot apparently. No TV back then so I was left to my own devices a bit, was an early reader and lived in my head for company I think.
Still chat to myself on solo car journeys! 🤣

I had a whole gang of imaginary friends (11). I remember their names and back stories and they were my constant companions until mid teens. Sigh. Happy memories.
I think I’m NT, but with sensory issues, but I have autistic children so who knows.

My autistic daughter had two very consistent imaginary friends between the ages of 3 and 8. She hates it if we mention them now. I’ve never heard it spoke of as an autistic thing though so it’s interesting that there’s a cluster of them here.

DD had a very specific imaginary friend when she was younger. She’s now a young adult, and there was never any doubt she wasn’t NT, although her mindset is very logical and non-woolly!

He had a full name (neither first or surname she’d come across before) and DD would regularly sleep on the floor as they took turns in the bed. They played together all the time - but he was naughty! She didn’t blame him for naughty things she’d done, she was very good in that respect, solid moral compass even at a young age, but she would constantly tell him off for misbehaving!

I once asked her if she could really see ‘Roger’ (not his real name 😆) and she scoffed at me and no mum, he an imaginary friend so he is … imaginary! He was around for a good few years and they had great fun together. As an adult DD thinks it was a perfectly normal stage of childhood and remembers that time fondly!

I don't think this is something that only autistic people experience though, is it? It's not uncommon, though your daughter's ability to explain it all is perhaps more unusual.