Say hello — and welcome — to that imaginary friend.

My friend Irene has an invisible younger daughter named Turtle. Before you think my friend is crazy, consider the back story. She’s given birth only once — to a very imaginative 3-year-old real-life daughter named Emma. In Emma’s mind she has a younger sister she named Turtle. Turtle goes with them everywhere and she also likes cornflakes and bananas just like her older sister Emma.

Once upon a time, imaginary friends were considered a cause for concern. These days, research tells us quite the opposite. Children with pretend-friends and who can conjure elaborate make believe worlds have a promising future of learning and social development.

Australian researchers say, having an imaginary friend can help a child learn. Psychologist Dr. Evan Kidd of Melbourne’s La Trobe University, says children with imaginary friends are better at learning to communicate than other children because they have a lot of practice at inventing interactions with their friends, which helps them improve their conversational skills.

Dr. Kidd and his colleague Anna Roby explored the hidden world of imaginary companions in a study which involved 44 children, 22 of which had imaginary friends in an attempt to understand the benefits.

The study found that the 22 children who had imaginary friends were better able to get their point across than were children of the same age who did not have an imaginary friend. Dr. Kidd explains, these children are in charge of both sides of the conversation so have a lot of practice at inventing interactions between their imaginary friends and themselves. Firing up their imagination this way is what facilitates the development of their conversational skills.

The researchers also discovered that children with an invisible friend or a personified toy had a better social understanding. These children were generally first born and were very creative.

Dr. Kidd says the phenomenon of the imaginary friend is really misunderstood and people think it is rare and something to worry about. But past studies have shown that around 65% of children aged between three and nine, had imaginary friends. These imaginary characters are not typically conjured out of loneliness or social adjustment problems. Most of the time, imaginary friends appear as an essential component of normal development.

Dr. Kidd has established in his research that the benefits of imaginary companions are long lasting. A study of university students showed that those who recalled having an imaginary companion in childhood were more creative, more achievement oriented, and more emotionally responsive than students who didn’t have one.

Now, there is no need for you to force your child into making up her own fantasy playmate. What studies like this tell us is that pretend play and imagination should be encouraged in order to develop young minds. In the book Nurtureshock, writers Po Bronson and Ashley Merriman featured a preschool program that relied heavily on pretend play. The program produced children that did exceptionally well academically. They were also better-behaved.

My kids don’t have imaginary friends. But I know that while my son is creating scenarios with his Lego blocks and while my daughter is talking to herself while “hanging out with Charlie Bucket in a birthday party”, they are both flexing their brain muscles. So I let them have their fantasies and sometimes even join in! A child’s imagination is a very powerful thing.

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