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In the past, a child admitting to having an imaginary friend has been a red flag for adults who assumed it was a sign that they were too shy to make real friends, felt lonely, were confused between fantasy and reality, or lacked something in their life. Increasingly, however, imaginary friends are being viewed as a normal, healthy part of child development, and a source of great interest for academics and practitioners alike.
Dr Karen Majors, a senior educational psychologist at the Institute of Education at UCL, says imaginary friends are far from rare, with 65 per cent of children having them by the age of seven. ‘It’s about time we did away with the feeling that these children are in the minority or have any kind of mental health problems,’ she says.
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