Post by Lawrence Jones on Feb 5, 2006 1:54:54 GMT -5
This is the second time I’ve heard a programme/feature about this issue on R4 over recent months. I wondered, though, if having an imaginary friend as a child is class or gender- related issue? I ask this because when I heard it covered on Woman’s Hour several months back, the mother speaking about her own daughter clearly came from an upper-middle-class background. Similarly, most of the voices of the children I heard on this week’s programme sounded very ‘stage school’.
The WH feature was slightly concerning, because the mother described how she’d taken her daughter on a car journey, with the imaginary friend on board as well. The imaginary friend was extremely disruptive and the car was stopped. The imaginary friend was thrown out! The child became so upset and agitated about this issue that the mother had to return and invite the imaginary friend back into the car.
So is an imaginary friend a consequence of loneliness or an integral part of a child’s play? How did contributors to this board stimulate their imaginations as children? My tricycle was a desperately important ingredient of play and I recall taking the front wheel off my older sister’s large tricycle and discovered that I could hook the front forks on to the back of my Triang trike (with a missing rubber pedal cover). I was now towing a caravan!!!! This became even more exciting when I found that I could tip up my sister’s doll’s pram and hook the handle over the saddle of the trike which was hooked on the back of the trike. The doll’s pram had now become a straw baler and I was towing a complex piece of farm machinery. I composed a song entitled: ‘October/November’ (1) which represented the reciprocatory motion of the baler arm. I never felt the need to invent an imaginary friend.
Notes
(1) I’d sing this as I pedalled along.
The WH feature was slightly concerning, because the mother described how she’d taken her daughter on a car journey, with the imaginary friend on board as well. The imaginary friend was extremely disruptive and the car was stopped. The imaginary friend was thrown out! The child became so upset and agitated about this issue that the mother had to return and invite the imaginary friend back into the car.
So is an imaginary friend a consequence of loneliness or an integral part of a child’s play? How did contributors to this board stimulate their imaginations as children? My tricycle was a desperately important ingredient of play and I recall taking the front wheel off my older sister’s large tricycle and discovered that I could hook the front forks on to the back of my Triang trike (with a missing rubber pedal cover). I was now towing a caravan!!!! This became even more exciting when I found that I could tip up my sister’s doll’s pram and hook the handle over the saddle of the trike which was hooked on the back of the trike. The doll’s pram had now become a straw baler and I was towing a complex piece of farm machinery. I composed a song entitled: ‘October/November’ (1) which represented the reciprocatory motion of the baler arm. I never felt the need to invent an imaginary friend.
Notes
(1) I’d sing this as I pedalled along.