by Susan Lower

Created on: May 18, 2008

Three years ago, my daughter introduced us to her friend Maya. We had moved to a new town, another state, and hadn't yet unpacked all the boxes. Yet, here I was one morning standing in my kitchen with spatula in hand staring blankly at my three year old. She had just informed me her friend Maya would be joining us for breakfast.

"Maya?" I said looking all around. For a moment I thought she might have renamed her little baby brother sitting in the high chair at the table or brought a doll along from the toy box and given it a name. But such was not the case.

She laughed at me. "Silly momma," she said. "Here is Maya, right here." She put her arm out as if she embraced someone, and at that moment I realized she was referring to an imaginary friend. I nearly burned the pancakes.

It dawned on me later in the day, Maya was the name of a little girl we went to church with at our old place. Somewhere in the transition of moving, my daughter missed her friend. So we did the only thing we knew we could do. We embraced a new member in our household.

Maya ate every meal with us. My daughter set the table with an extra plate each time we sat down to the table. Were ever we went in the car, we buckled Maya in the seat beside my daughter. When we visited the library, or went to the store, Maya was there. And, at bedtime, we tucked an extra, invisible, body into bed and shared an extra hug.

We did this for over a year.

Our pediatrician encouraged us to accept, play along with it, and when our daughter felt she no longer needed a imaginary friend, our Maya would disappear. She would grow out of it, most all children do.

Children create imaginary friends for a lot of reasons. Maya appeared in our lives to fill a void in my three year old's life, her missing friend from our old church home, now Maya doesn't live with us all the time, but neither has she been forgotten.

Two years have passed, and Maya will come to visit out of the blue. We don't mind though, it's good to see old friends, imaginary or not, and inspire our daughter to keep her creativity flowing in her little head.

If your little one has a friend, an imaginary friend, don't frown or ignore them. Embrace your child's creativity. By showing your child you are accepting of their new found friend you are also encouraging them to show you who they are, or want to be. You never know what unexpected things you can learn about your child through the creation of an invisible counterpart.

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