Reports that a team of Yale University psychologists found that
pretend playmates produce a happy and creative adulthood. Led by Jerome
Singer; Doesn't support the belief that children with imaginary playmates
are shy; Flowering of the imagination.
By
PT Staff, published on January 01, 1992
Child's Play
Convention has it that kids with imaginary companions are shy or in
some other way maladjusted. But a team of Yale University psychologists
finds that pretend playmates augura happy and creative adulthood.
"Research clearly does not support the popular belief that shy or
maladjusted children are especially likely to have imaginary companions,"
says Jerome Singer, Ph.D. "If anything, children who talk to an imaginary
friend are more likely than their less imaginative peers to play happily
in nursery school and to be cooperative with friends and adults." The
research shows they also smile and laugh mere.
Children's pretend pals are important in the adult flowering of the
imagination, says Singer in The House of Make Believe: Play and the
Developing Imagination, his new book written with his wife, Dorothy
Singer, Ph.D., who codirects Yale's Family Television Research and
Consultation Center with her husband.
In fact, the Singers believe parents can be stimulating a penchant
for playacting among their children by providing a key person who
inspires and sanctions play and responds to it with delight; a "sacred
space" for play, no matter how small; and regular open-ended unstructured
playtime. Then throw in a few simple objects as props--discarded pots and
pans work just fine.
PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE)
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