Imaginary friends go mainstream – more children have them than ever

Eleanor Tucker is fascinated by evidence that children's imaginary playmates are more widespread than ever. Especially as she used to have one herself ...In the 1970s, when I was at primary school, I had a friend. He was the sort of friend who would nowadays alert social services. Because he wasn't a child. And he wasn't a girl. No, he was in his 30s. He had a beard. And his name was Klas.Klas was my imaginary friend. He wasn't about all the time, because he lived near my grandmother in a white house by the station, about half an hour's drive from ours. But as I grew up, he was alluded to. Mentioned. Blamed, even. If I talked when nobody was around, it was to Klas. If I sometimes played without my sister, I was playing with Klas.It seemed quite normal at the time to have an imaginary friend with a Scandinavian-sounding name and facial hair. But lots of things pass for normal when you're a kid. By the time I went to secondary school, Klas had stopped visiting. I filed him away under "the past" and forgot about him, until a book I read recently jogged my memory and I mentioned him to my husband. He raised an eyebrow. "He doesn't sound like your average imaginary friend, if there is such a thing any more …"It turns out that there is. The book, Who Framed Klaris Cliff? by Nikki Sheehan, creates a world where imaginary friends have become the enemy. It's a young adult novel that tells the story of Joseph, an ordinary boy with an imaginary friend called Klaris who finds himself i...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Tags: Family Life and style Parents and parenting Children Relationships Psychology The Guardian Features Source Type: news