Imaginary companions

The topic I would like to discuss in this week’s blog deals with imaginary friends/companions. After reading some of the posts Sarah Ennis’ blog really got me thinking. She talks about what determines whether or not a child will have an imaginary companion. Sarah talks about similarities that children with ICs (imaginary companions) have. She then suggests some reasons why children may create these ICs. I would like to take the other side of this and suggest some reasons why children may not create ICs. The most obvious reason deals with the child’s development. Alison Shawber talked about how children with ICs have to be able to understand “pretense, which is a representational act which is dependent on a mental representation.” They must be able to understand this in order to understand other people’s pretend acts and to be able to pretend themselves. One reason why some children do not create ICs is because they do not have this ability yet. They may not be able to understand pretense and therefore they cannot understand “pretend acts.” However, this does not mean that they may not create one later on. This just may be a reason why some children create an IC later on in their childhood.
One other suggestion that I have for why some children do not create ICs deals with some gender differences. Alison Shawbert mentioned that there were some gender differences in this topic of imaginary companions. She said that girls are more likely to have imaginary companions. She also said that boys are more likely to have pretend identities. I would like to suggest that this may be due to the social construction of gender. Girls are taught to be caring, nurturing, and warm. I understand that not every IC is something that can be taken care of. But maybe one reason why girls are more likely to create an IC is because they are taught these things (caring, nurturing, etc). Maybe they feel the need to take care of something. A similar suggestion can be made of boys which may explain why some children do not create ICs. Maybe boys are more likely to create pretend identities because they are conditioned to be “a man,” and be the hero in situations. Boys might feel the need to show the fact that they can be a “hero” or the “strong man.” This may be a reason why boys do not create ICs as often as girls do.
The last thing that I would like to do in this post is ask a question. Alison Shawber told us that 65% of children have an IC. What I would like to know deals with the other 35% of children. If they do not create imaginary companions do they pretend in other ways? An imaginary companion falls into the category of “nothing as a vehicle” when talking about role play. Do these children role play with the self or a toy as the vehicle. Also do these children participate in object substitution? I would just like to know if there have been any studies on whether or not children without ICs participate in any other pretend play.