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According to the NYU Child Study Center, about 65% of children between the ages of 3 and 5 have an imaginary friend. One study revealed that some children continue to have imaginary friends as late as 7 years old. While new imaginary friends, and those who have stayed around for too long, can be disconcerting to parents; most of the time there is no reason for concern. Imaginary friends are a way for children to deal with any number of issues in life - with absolute authority, autonomy, and abandon. An imaginary friend can be anything and anyone a child needs or wants "him" or "her" to be.

Younger children are said to more often turn an object, like a stuffed animal, into their imaginary friend; while older children are more likely to use their more developed imaginations to create the kind of imaginary friend with which most of us associate the term.

Children of "imaginary-friend" age are at an age when they are establishing their own identity. NYU Child Study Center points out that children of this age are also at an age of testing the boundaries between reality and fantasy. For the most part, there appears to be little difference in personalities between children with imaginary pals and those without them, although there is some indication that those with make-believe buddies may have a better ability to see things from others' perspectives. Children of this age are no longer living in the smaller world of a toddler, but the larger world (and everything associated with it) is still relatively new to them. An imaginary friend allows children to make sense of whatever it is they need to make sense of. It is not unusual to hear a child teaching his/her imaginary friend about the very thing he/she is in the process of learning and digesting. The five-year-old who is heard telling her imaginary friend, "Susannah, you cannot go near the street because its dangerous," is putting into practice what she, herself, has recently been told. Furthermore, this child gets to have the different role of being the teacher to her "friend".

Although few differences have been seen between children who have imaginary friends and those who don't, children with imaginary friends obviously have strong imaginations. Children with good imaginations generally grow into creative adults.

I was about nine years old when my four-year-old brother had not one, but two, imaginary friends - "Hat" and "Hammer". One of these imaginary pals was a really well behaved "friend", who was a good influence

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