Should You Worry If Your Child Has An Imaginary Friend? (Essay Sample)

Should you worry if your child has an imaginary friend?
Early childhood is characterized by curiosity, language and mental development, creativity and vivid imagination. It is believed that a person’s character, personality, confidence and self-esteem are developed by the age of five. That is the reason why this age is considered so critical. Children, especially those without siblings, often find comfort and amusement in imaginary friends. This fact often concerns parents, who are worried and unsure of how to act.
First of all, imaginary friends can provide children with hours of fun play, while they let their imagination run wild. Most games need two players and an only child has few choices when parents are busy. In this way, children learn to share, even with a friend who is not really there. Moreover, they can learn to express their feelings while telling their secrets to an invisible friend of the same age, who can understand them better than grown-ups. Furthermore, children of preschool age have difficulty in expressing their feelings. As a result, they identify their feelings as their imaginary friend’s ones and talk about their friend’s likes and dislikes instead. A nationally recognized parenting expert and author, Armin Brott, claims that sometimes an imaginary friend is an easy way out of responsibilities since they can take the blame for everything wrong the child does (Brott). However, in this way, the child learns to distinguish the difference between good and bad deeds.
As a consequence, parents should not worry or try to convince their children that there is not an actual friend, only a figment of their imagination. ...