Megan now has four of them who are human and one who is a moose who likes to eat purple food. She calls him the "asky moose" because he asks lots of questions. But let's focus on the human friends for now. Three of them have been hanging around for over a year and the other one just joined us in the last few months. The thing is that these friends all have consistent stories and backgounds to them. It just blows my mind.
So, I've been doing some research I've been relieved to learn that imaginary friends serve two purposes- they relieve boredom and they are a way for kids to work out stresses and anxieties. Read on to find out why the latter is so very clearly the winner here. I was also relieved to read that I think I'm handling the friends fairly well. I treat them with respect but don't necessarily make too big a deal out of them, except for the fact that I am immortalizing them in this blog.
So, the other day Megan was setting the table for our friends to join us for dinner when she referred to her friends as "her kids." They've always been her friends before so I wondered why the change? She replied that all of their parents had died. My heart literally skipped a beat. The wheels started turning and suddenly I'm remembering how many coversations we'd had lately about death and where are granni's parents and grandpa Furness' parents and why did they die? Also, we watched the movie Annie and the movie Polyanna BOTH IN THE SAME WEEK! What kind of mother shows their three year old two movies in a row about orphaned little girls!?!? I'm feeling horrible but pull it together with a silent prayer to say the right thing. I got down on her level and said "honey, are you afraid that your parents are going to die?" She looked at me with a complelely serious face and said "uh- huh." We then had a lovely little heart to heart which I hope made sense and will maybe somehow counter act the damage done by my "movies from my childhood" marathon. No wonder I have so much anxiety- going around with little orphans singing in my brain all the time as a kid.
It was a memorable parenting moment and in case you were wondering more about the imaginary friends here is a short synopsis. One of them is named Faline and she is cousins with her best little imaginary friend who has been around the longest named Babba (I have no idea where she got that). The other two are Andrew and Bobert, but Andrew I guess is a girl. Faline is the oldest and she can do so many things that the others can't like read and write. The others all have one younger siblings and amazingly enough (before the dying thing at least) all their mom's had babies in their tummies too.
Does anyone have any advice or opinions here?
5 comments:
I think you've handled everything very well.
I'm learning that kids can have very complex emotions, the bright side of the "friends" is that there is a manifestation of what she's thinking and feeling. I know a few kids that keep so much inside and parents are simply left to wonder.
Where is that kid manual anyway? :)
I think you have handled it well. Megan seems so deep at times. She does things that seem way beyond anything my kids do. But, my kids are so close so they have each other to play imagination with, like playing house. They call each other mommy and daddy and Tyler will leave for work while Mikayla cares for the babies. That is really interesting though.
cute blog. i saw it on ashli's blog. love your family picture.
I have no advice to offer, unless you want to administer a few Rorschach tests and see what she comes up with. It sounds like you're handling it very well.
Whatever you do, don't start showing her Disney cartoons! Bambi, Finding Nemo, Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, etc. All of them having parents who have met an early end. Eek! What is with these movies, anyway?
I love how you said you 'pulled yourself together with a silent prayer to say the right thing.' I think that is perhaps one of the most important things we can do as parents. When the spirit is with us, we will not have any regrets with what we say and our children will learn more from that type of interaction than a mere reaction to the situation. This is something I've been thinking a lot about lately and am trying to improve on. Thanks for your example! You are doing a great job!
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