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Original poster

another 'is this normal?' thread - toddler fantasy land

19 replies

snotbuster · 24/03/2008 21:21

DS (2.4) talks quite well for his age and is very imaginative, I'm starting to wonder his fantasy life is going beyond 'normal' though. For example he will often tell me (very earnestly) things like he's 'been on a helicopter to see grandad' and recently he told me that he'd broken a window at nursery (I'm sure he hadn't). Today he'd 'seen a cross man at Daddy's house' (XP said no one else was there). He can be very insistent that these things are true - is this normal??

OP posts:
fingerwoman · 24/03/2008 21:24

yes. sometimes I think they get it from somewhere and then get it confued/change it in their heads.
ie, they'll see somethbing on tv and then tell you it happened to them.
ds1 tells me all sorts of stuff, recent ones have been that he is going to live with his other daddy who is called Nick Lasserlan. I'd have been taken in until he said they lived with a family of elephants in Iceland.

Upsidedowncake · 24/03/2008 21:29

My DS (2.4 also good language) tells me things that are clearly fantasies too.

I tend to rationalise them by remembering that (1) he has a fairly shaky sense of time ('yesterday' means any time in the past), and (2) he can't tell the difference between dreams and real life.

So, 'there was a cat in my bedroom yesterday. He was biting me.'

'When are the owls coming back? They were eating worms in the kitchen.'

Original poster
snotbuster · 24/03/2008 21:30

Thank you fingerwoman - can't stop laughing at the mo to formulate a reply!

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purplejennyrose · 24/03/2008 21:31

Yes!! Small children have all sorts of stuff jumbled in their little heads and when they can talk it all kind of spills out. It's common for children to make up vivid fantasies even when they are in the early years of school. When they're toddlers they don't understand 'lying' and they can't differentiate between reality and fantasy. Don't worry, normal! I would respond jokingly and lightly at this stage.

tortoiseSHELL · 24/03/2008 21:32

Yep - ds1 used to scare me when at age 2 he would say things like 'you see this bruise - Dad did it to me...'

He once went to playgroup and told them that 'Dad and Mum always hit him, and threw him out of the car window onto the road, where he cried and cried....'

Complete fantasy. I once asked him - 'do you mean Daddy did this?' to which he said 'no, not Daddy, Dad, who is my bad dad in my head...'

He is a strange boy! I did have to tip off any playgroups/nurseries though as I had visions of SS coming round (and with good reason too!)

Original poster
snotbuster · 24/03/2008 21:36

Thanks again - I suppose the 'broken window' and 'cross man' stories have been more worrying than the usual ones because they almost sounded plausible.

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Original poster
snotbuster · 24/03/2008 21:38

X-posts tortoise - goodness that must've been a bit scary!

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NotQuiteCockney · 24/03/2008 21:38

My DS2 has an imaginary little brother who:

  • lives on an island in a nearby park
  • is roman (or a cat. or dead.)
  • is called 'heady' or 'hyak'
  • is older than DS2
  • we will go visit, when it snows - the police will take us

Whatever is going on, his little brother is generally relevant. Adults seem to have a lot of interesting things to say, so it turns out that Hyak has often been/done/seen/bought/whatevered whatever we're interested in.

Original poster
snotbuster · 24/03/2008 21:41

DS does 'have a little boy called Adam' who seems to be variously his little brother/friend/son/someone from nursery but don't think Adam can talk yet. Though he does seem to go to a lot of football matches.

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fingerwoman · 24/03/2008 21:47

hehe ds1 has a friend called Alan, he doesn't live with us, he lives in Iceland (recurring theme lol)
he has all different colour hair, and he has lots of playdoh and has mixed the colours up.
sometimes he is a girl
he has a long neck and he is 3

the other day we were expecting my best friend round who ds1 adores
me: your best friend is coming over later
ds1: ohhh ALAN!
me: erm, no M
ds1: ALan never comes to see me

cory · 25/03/2008 07:51

Dd at age 2 used to have a stripey daughter and a boyfriend (Stripey Daddy) who lived in Portsmouth. At age 3 she had a whole imaginary country.

Ds had an imaginary country and a language that went with it. Don't remember much of the language now except it used singing for intensifying, so you sang the word for 'red' if an object was very deeply red.

My niece had a whole set of otherwise imaginary cousins who got eaten by lions one day.

My nephew was distraught one day when a man sat down next to him on the bus- and sat on his imaginary friend!

This is all part of the pleasure of having children- enjoy!

Cathpot · 25/03/2008 22:25

We live with various imaginary friends but the ones that turn up most often are Suki (lives in a rainbow house, flies a helicopter, is dead - me 'oh dear' her 'its ok mummy she didnt look where she was going on the road, but she can still talk') and Ossimoli, indeterminate sex, and very small, whom I once accidently ate in the mistaken belief I had been handed an imaginary sweet.

NotQuiteCockney · 25/03/2008 22:35

DS1 has an imaginary pet now. Well, it's a box of shreddies, so I'm not sure how imaginary it is. It's a monster, with no eyes, but with a mouth and teeth.

Orinoco · 25/03/2008 22:40

Message withdrawn

madamez · 25/03/2008 22:46

DS has an imaginary friend (she is called Jessica and apparently has something to do with Nina and the Neurons on Cbeebies, don;t know if anyone else can enlighten me on that as I don't recall there being anyone called Jessica on the show). Jessica is very small, small enough to go in DS' pocket and sit on the palm of our hands. She spends a lot of time going to the toilet in the little boat DS plays with in the bath... Our house and area are also full of invisible 'scary' but amusing monsters. There's also a frog called Nacky Nacky Nacky, and an imaginary version of Carrie from Cbeebies Pop SHop who appears all over the place and holds conversations with DS. I think it's all highly entertaining, but don;t get me started on the imaginary tram stops, Go Hill and DOnkey Station...

fingerwoman · 25/03/2008 22:49

lol cathpot at the imaginary sweet.

ds1 has a lot of imaginary things. I once offered him a cup of water and he couldn't take it from me because he was holding something imaginary.
I had to take it off of him and then give him the water lol

LadyBabo · 27/03/2008 21:45

lol!
Dd 23months was telling me quite earnestly last night about the mouse that is hiding up my nose cos it is scared of a monster (monster is not apparently nasally related)
(although I do have quite a big nose )

XXXX

EachPeachPearMum · 30/03/2008 15:18

Dd (2.2) often tells me of things she has 'done' such as visiting the pet shop...she has done them, but not today or yesterday as she thinks.

She also says that anything that's lost has 'gone to the swimming pool'!

as in Rudolph (her red-nosed stuffed toy, who seems to have completely disappeared) has "gone to the swimming pool. He's got wet".

I think it may be because she knows we used to go there, and she knows we used to have rudolph, and just marries them up in her head.
FWIW I think Rudolph fell out of the buggy on a shopping trip one day. Really must take her swimming again though

Mumcentreplus · 30/03/2008 15:31

lol...my DD had an imaginary friend called Carcle...he would come to visit her in her room in his tiny space ship,he was an alien who changed colour (but was also invisible to the parental eye..lol) he lived on Carcle planet with his parents and sister..apparently..now she has almost completely forgotten about him...I did worry for a while because she would talk about him constantly.

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