invisible friends - any tips?

[camdancer]

My 3 year old has a visitor this afternoon - a friendly monster. I never had an imaginary friend growing up so was just looking for any tips on how to react to it. So far I'm treating it as I would any visitor to our house, except it had to share ds's bowl of cornflakes and couldn't have it's own. Is that ok?

Any tips or stories about yours or your dc's imaginary friends?

I remember that DD1 had a friend called Blue and another friend called Little who was very big. As I recall we didnt give physical reality to these friends (no special seats, food etc). How you are handling this seems just fine. Enjoy your DC's imagination.

My son had afriend called Harold who lived on the roof. He left as quickly as he came.
I agree you are dealing with it fine.

DD had loads of imaginary friends (including Barack Obama who she made soup for). Just act as you are. The monster could eat pretend cornflakes if that makes it easier.

I had an imaginery friend called David said with an essex accent (i'm from just outside glasgow). He came when my older brother started school even though I had younger brothers and sisters.

He had his own seat (in a house with already 7 people, caused a lot of problems). Ate with us, although no milk on his cornflakes as apparently Davids mum told my mum he didn't like milk. My mum later admitted she couldn't afford to waste a bowl of cereal. :o

Then one day my dad asked a question about David and I just said "dad don't be silly davids not real" and then he went away!

I have absolutely no recollection but I must have been 3.5 maybe?

My mum said she wasn't sure how to deal with it but just went with it and was sure I would grow out of it. I think I did when my younger sister was old enough to properly play with.

I'd just go with it, I'm sure these friends will come and go. My dd is only 2 and she babbles to all sorts of random people! :)

Sounds like you are dealing with it just right. DS1 had an imaginary friend (Ted) for quite a while - I kept sitting on Ted or not noticing when Ted fell out of the trailer of DS1's trike . DS1 was fine about it - just seemed to think I was a bit dense not to have seen him .

If DS1 asked for food for Ted, I just told him that Ted had told me he didn't like [whatever], and he seemed OK with that and would just share his. Ted had to have his own fork, though, which was fine. Was v sweet, and I was a bit sad when Ted disappeared into the ether...

Had an imaginary friend called Naughty Margaret who was a useful scapegoat for all my 3yr old misdemeanors.

Ds had an 'older brother' called Daniel who lived under the house.

Both Margaret and Daniel were warmly welcomed

my ds2 (3) has a puppy in his pocket that sits in the palm of his hand and runs about round his feet when we are out and about, a dinosaur called rudy and the dinorsaur's friend Nit Wick. I postively encourage it, because its very cute! I draw the line at making them dinner though, I send ds to make it in his play kitchen

My brother (one year older) and I had an imaginary brother-and-sister pair of friends who lived in the cherry tree in the back yard. The brother had a girl's name and the sister had a boy's name. There was a knot on the tree that we understood to be a doorbell, and we used to call to the tree to ask them out to play.

We would have been maybe 3 and 4, before he started school I guess. I vividly remember how real they seemed, and that my brother and I were pretty much always in agreement about what they were saying and doing at any given time. My parents told me later that it was eerie how we never missed a beat in confirming / elaborating on each other's stories!

I think of them with the same nostalgia I feel for other childhood friends I've lost touch with. Maybe that's weird! I must call my bro tomorrow and ask if he remembers.