THE POWER OF PRETEND
IMAGINARY FRIENDS PROMOTE REAL LIFE SKILLS
Studies show that up to 50% of young children have imaginary companions, ranging from entirely conjured entities to beloved stuffed animals. The popular social stigma around imaginary friends is that these children must be shy or lonely, but psychologists disagree. In fact, if your child develops an imaginary friend, most psychologists say it’s an activity you should promote instead of discourage. Psychologists claim that the invention of an entire friendly persona points to the fact that the child is both creative and highly social. Imaginary scenarios also give kids an opportunity to indulge in their wildest aspirations, like going to the moon or inventing a time machine. Their creativity gives them the ability to dream, explore, and experiment in useful ways. Imaginary friends can also be there to comfort your child when they’re feeling down or experiencing a tantrum, which is helpful when they are learning how to manage their emotions. There are also many ways parents can take part in interactions with imaginary friends to strengthen their own relationship with their child. Imaginary friends can make interactive play more meaningful and can be useful in accomplishing daily routines, like cleaning up or getting ready for bed. They also provide a window into the way your child’s mind works by encouraging the vocalization of thoughts and feelings
40–45 feet long and about 10 inches around, and they weigh 500 pounds. They are transported in bundles in a triangular steel rack on a front-end loader. The pipes were racked four layers high, despite safety regulations mandating a three- layer limit. Typically, a chock is in place to prevent the rack of pipes from rolling. But one day, the company used a plastic chock, which wasn’t strong enough to keep the pipes in the overloaded rack from breaking loose. When it broke, over 3,500 pounds of pipe dropped from 30 feet high. Charles saw these coming and tried leaping out of the way, but his right ankle, foot, and lower leg were crushed, his ribs were fractured, and his shoulder and elbow were torn. His ankle needed reconstruction and a lot of hardware. He developed a staph infection requiring placement of a catheter line to supply continuous antibiotics. After six weeks, the line thrombosed, and he had to finish on oral antibiotics. He had more surgeries on his ankle and leg and extensive surgery to repair the tears and bone breakdown in his shoulder. Charles could easily have died from this accident, and he relived it in his nightmares repeatedly. He required intense treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. Slowly, as his physical and emotional wounds healed, he started vocational retraining. Thinking he’d like to help others as he had been helped, he took classes toward a nursing degree. The classes spiked his anxiety levels, so he decided to serve people by doing something he’d enjoyed all his life: cooking! He’s now a sous-chef at Napoli’s Italian Eatery in Canton, a restaurant with hundreds of 5-star reviews. Charles recently decided he wanted to put this chapter of his life behind him, so he closed his claim. Before he did, we obtained for him one of the largest safety violation awards possible. Charles never gave up. We are proud to know him and look forward to enjoying his excellent cooking on our next trip to Canton! Imaginary friends are so important to how some children learn and grow that they’ve been featured in pop culture for many years. Entertainment like “Calvin and Hobbes,”“Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends,”and even adult shows like “Supernatural”—which featured an episode about a main character’s childhood imaginary friend returning to teach him valuable lessons as an adult — portray the inventors of imaginary friends as outgoing and creative. It just goes to show that letting the imagination run wild not only encourages healthy development but can also lead to lots of fun. they may not otherwise share. Imaginary friends are often a proxy for the children who invent them, so the conversations your child has with or about their friend can provide a lot of insight into how your child views the world and themselves.
Guys who work in oil and gas are a different breed of cat. It’s hard, dangerous work. My dad used to say his time working as a roustabout in the Louisiana oil fields was the manliest work he ever did. Charles Haas knows this work. In 2015, he was a casing operator for Oilfield Inspection Services, a company that tests and inspects the huge tubes that line the drilled wells. These pipes are
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