Imaginary friends, good or bad?

[Bohica]

DD is 3 & has recently started holding hands with her imaginery friend called Lilly.

Today, we put DD on a swing & she yelled "no no I'm sitting on my best friend" we took her off the swing, she "lifted" her new best friend off the swing & put her on the floor & then went on the swing. When she finished she put her "friend" back on the swing.

When we went to the toliet & had started to come out of the cubicle she again yelled "stop, Lilly needs a wee" & proceeded to take "Lilly" to the toilet.

DD is the youngest of 3.

Do I enjoy her having a little imaginery friend ot start to discourage it. I'm going back to work in 2 days & DD is starting nursery full days, 4 days a week - do you think she is worried about going to "big school" as she calls it?

Lilly is going to be Blue Kangaroo isn't she?

I'm going to go back to work & DD is going to start ramming toilet roll down the loo & pulling curtains down whilst blaming bloody Lilly, isn't she?

My best friends little girl is 3.5 yrs and she has an imaginary friend... I think its cute ''Tom'' sits in her hand!!! We just talk to him involve him in what we are doing as and when she lets us know he is there. I don't see anything wrong in it, and if she is using Lilly as a comforter she will phase her out the more confident she becomes in her new enviroment :)

Thank you mummy I do worry that lilly has arrived as I am about to go back to work but at DD's age I suppose there is no harm in her having lilly.

I just worry that going back to work is causing DD stress.

Even if the cause of this is that your daughter is a little anxious about you going back to work, would her using an imaginary friend as a way of comforting herself be such a bad thing? It seems to me it could be an imaginative way of rationalising it. :)

DD2 (also 3) has a whole raft of friends. I find them very useful, for example, if she's a bit worried about something or reluctant to do something I pop one of her fairy friends into her pocket, or tuck them into bed with her after a nightmare. Then she feels comforted by their 'presence'; worked a treat in the French creche/ski school when on holiday recently. Fairies are remarkedly good at skiing it turns out. Sometimes it can be a little frustrating as they do take a long time to get out of the car and we obviously have to wait for them all to come out before we can shut the door (and various other little hitches like that).

Virtually all the children in my large extended family have had imaginary friends; I don't know of a single instance of anyone having come to any harm from it. It's just a way of handling a world that can seem quite big and frightening when you're 3. As Emzar says, a little comfort is no bad thing.

Yes, there is no harm in imaginary friends. Best to support them. My son has a variety of them (the latest is Soren Torenson, not that imaginative really altho he doesn't do that much with any. He also talks to some of his cuddly toys. He's 4.5.

When we moved house his special cuddly toy had to come everywhere for quite a few months but I saw this as completely understandable. It's eased off now we're more settled.

I had an imaginary friend, pampy, and I still remember what he looked like. we did on one occasion have to drive back home from a day shopping as we "forgot" pampy and I was inconsolable (so I'm told I don't reber this) but it never did me any harm. It's nice that your daughter has her friend, so he never feels alone when she's anxious. Don't worry about it

I doubt your DDs friend is harmful. My DD had one called Nango, it seems Nango had a blue face and black hair so she'd be easy to pick out in a crowd.
nango appeared in our lives just before we left Thailand. By the time we'd reached Switzerland she was a distant memory.
Poor unloved Nango and rotten fickle DD.