Dispatch From The Dad Zone

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The Boy, almost 4, has a new friend. The friend’s name is John. He has black hair, blue eyes and green skin. He enjoys dancing, playing in the bath, chasing the Boy around the apartment and reading. He’s great. He doesn’t exist outside the Boy’s mind, though, and that has the Wife a little freaked out.I blame Stanley Kubrick. The Shining is a masterful movie, one I’ve watched dozens of times over the decades, the first as a young boy not much older than little Danny Torrance. I didn’t get most of it at the time, but I certainly remember creepy little Danny and the croaky-voiced, index-finger-dwelling Tony. (I also remember Jack Torrance’s descent into insanity as snowbound isolation in the Overlook Hotel and lack of alcohol drove him over a murderous edge -- something for us Canadian writers to think about.) The Wife looked at the Boy, looked at me, looked back at him and said, “REDRUM! REDRUM!” The Boy, meanwhile, started dancing to whatever was playing on the iPod, and encouraged John to do the same.I wasn’t worried, but I was curious. After all, John was a sweet enough kid. He wasn’t getting into fights with the Boy, or macking on his little girl friends. As far as I could tell, he was a perfectly polite, cooperative buddy. So I did what any Western parent did. I consulted a shrink, and then the internet.The shrink happens to be my psychoanalyst sister-in-law, and knows the Boy very well. In an email to me, she writes, "In fact, as I know [the Boy], I imagine it is a creative solution that is emerging to manage unconscious developments that are being worked out." Sounds both reasonable and reassuring, so I’ll buy that.The internet, bless it, was even more reassuring. I found one article from a 2004 study by University of Washington and University of Oregon psychologists who found that two-thirds of children have an imaginary friend at some point in their lives. Others say the number is around 25%, but still, whew! Other findings: “While preschool girls were more likely to have an imaginary companion, by age 7, boys were just as likely as girls to have one. Twenty-seven percent of the children described an imaginary friend that their parents did not know about. Fifty-seven percent of the imaginary companions of school-age youngsters were humans and 41% were animals. One companion was a human capable of transforming herself into any animal the child wanted.” Cool!However: “Not all imaginary companions are friendly. A number were quite uncontrollable and some were a nuisance.” Not to worry, says the study’s lead author, Dr. Stephanie Carlson. In an interview with LiveScience.com she said, "These are not all smooth interactions, but can still be useful and functional in development, even if they're not all friendly."On the bright side, if the imaginary friend is breaking some kid’s balls, at least the kid is likely to see some linguistic benefit beyond learning how to tell some invisible brat to f*ck off. In 2009, researchers at New Zealand’s University of Otago discovered that kids with imaginary friends have “more advanced narrative skills than children who do not engage in this type of play.” Otago associate professor Elaine Reese says, "Because children's storytelling skills are a strong predictor of their later reading skill, these differences may even have positive spinoffs for children's academic performance.” Harvard bound, that’s my boy!There is a boatload of research and theories on the subject of imaginary friends, much of it quite fascinating. Some say it’s a coping mechanism; others believe it’s a mental perspective-taking thing -- basically, the child is learning how to see the world from other people’s points of view.Generally, imaginary friends disappear once the child reaches around 7. Children simply outgrow their imaginary friend and leave them behind. Which, if you think too much about it, may seem a bit cold and brutal, but is a simple fact as your child becomes more involved in external realities.I think I might kind of miss John. After all, I’ve danced with him, fed him, changed him, washed him and watched him go potty. And, besides, if the Wife finally snaps and decides to hack us to pieces with an ax some cold, snowy winter’s night, who’s going to warn us? Continue Reading

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