My Children. My Opinions. My Tales.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

The Calvin and Hobbes syndrome

I recently read that some toddlers have such active imaginations, that they actually believe what they are imagining.

Sort of like Calvin and Hobbes.



Calvin, a mischievous little boy, and his stuffed Tiger, Hobbes find themselves in all sorts of trouble. To the adults, Hobbes is a stuffed Tiger. To Calvin, Hobbes is his very much alive tiger and best friend.

Similar to Calvin, Jelly has her imaginary friends...Bella and Becca. These two, who I assume are her sisters, whom she loves to boss around all the time. She plays with them at home, fights with them in the car and the moment hubby or I interrupt, she gets very shy and bashful about it, "No, turn around!"


Bella and Becca have quite the reputation around our household (similar to Hobbes), they usually are the ones causing any and all the trouble...well besides what our fat cat Tobee doesn't do.

She can become so actively engaged with her sisters/friends...that sometimes hubby and I have a hard time distinguishing whether she is talking to us or her friends.

I am not quite sure what the psychology is behind imaginary friends, if it is toddlers learning social skills, how to have a conversation or if it is a coping mechanism (loneliness or helping them through a difficult situation) or maybe it is as plain and simple as a developmental thing.

Does your little one have an imaginary friend?

4 comments:

www.stepherz.com said...

Nope, neither of mine have a pretend friend. I had two when I was little-- Bessy and Frank. Bessy was the bad friend and Frank was the good one. I'm pretty sure that Frank ended up fading out way before Bessy. Wonder what that means???

josetteplank.com said...

No, no imaginary friends, here.

I, however, had two: Billy and Flower.

From what I understand, imaginary friends are developmentally normal. Although, I think it would freak me out to have my kids talking to people I can't see, lol.

Carey said...

Stepherz,I had one too, but only one. It is a great way to blame the bad stuff on the imaginary friend...

Jozet, LOL...it did freak us out a little, but we are used to it now.

Unknown said...

Neither of my kids have imaginary friends but they have stuffed animals who are very lifelike to them. They will have an hour long conversation with their stuffies. It's cute.

My husband was born in Harrisburg, PA. Small world. He still has family there and in Wilke Barre.