nto the Imagination!: How Kids Perceive Reality

I love Halloween-the costumes, the candy. In fact, I didn't stop trick-or-treating until sometime in college, but by then I was chaperoned by a couple of grade school kids. One year, their parents gave me a pillow case and said, "why not try for a few mini-candy bars? We'll share." I was wearing my college sweatshirt, a pair of jeans and no makeup. Hardly a costume, at least not one I'd choose for my alter ego. Imagine my surprise when someone asked me what I was supposed to be. I said, quite honestly, "a college student." "What a terrific costume!" And plunk! a handful of chocolate landed right inside that pillow case. Stupid grown-ups. You'd think they could tell I was an adult in my own right.

Of course, costumes can be deceiving. And then there's that part of the brain that lets us believe what we want to believe. Adults are very good at this. Take the movies: even though we know it's just a movie, we still get anxious, sad, and scared. This kind of cerebral emotion didn't just develop overnight. It took years of careful cultivation of our imaginations and it started when we were very, very young.

Some of the earliest signs of a healthy imagination in a child manifest in the creation of imaginary friends or personified objects, like stuffed animals that "talk" to the child. These "friends" usually appear around two-and-a-half or three-years-old and can last until grade school or beyond. Nearly two-thirds of all preschoolers confess to having imaginary friends. Also, they are more common among firstborn and only children, according to research conducted by Dr. Jerome Singer, a psychologist at Yale University. Dr. Singer also found that children who have imaginary friends got along better with classmates, appeared happier, and had a richer vocabulary than children who did not.

Despite these findings, many parents express concern when they see their child bringing the imaginary friend out of the playroom. They worry their child is unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality because he or she chooses to act within the confines of a made-up world. However, Dr. Marjorie Taylor, a professor and head of the Psychology Department at the University of Oregon, says her research indicates the opposite is true.

"They're in control of the fantasy," Dr. Taylor says. "If I'm creating a companion, I'm in control of that companion. I'm the one who decides to do it. I'm the one who figured out what the companion is going to be like, and I'm the one who's the author of what happens between me and my companion."

Taylor says this kind of control is important on several levels: not only do children get to decide what the imaginary friend says and does, they get to experiment with different scenarios-how the imaginary friend reacts after getting a shot at the doctor's office or what mommy will say if the friend jumps on the couch. Singer calls this a child's way of dealing with every day stress.

Under these conditions, Taylor says children are quite able to distinguish between what is real and what is imagined. As part of her research, Taylor interviewed young, pre-school aged children about their imaginary friends. During the course of conversation, she says the children would interrupt themselves to clarify that the friend in question is part of the child's imagination.

"They'll say, 'you know it's just pretend' or, 'she's just a make-believe girl.' And they'll kind of smile," Dr. Taylor says. "They're almost worried that I'm getting confused."

Where children might become confused has more to do with what they see and what they've learned up to that point in time.

Dr. Jacqueline Woolley, an Associate Professor of Psychology at UT-Austin, has based a lot of her research on what is called the appearance/reality distinction. For example, she shows children a sponge painted to look like a rock. Children younger than five-years-old have difficulty understanding that what they see is not a rock but, rather, a sponge.

"They can't really think of one thing in two different ways," Woolley says, which is why some children are afraid of Halloween. "So it's possible they can see mom dressed up as the ghost ... and if you ask the child what does she look like, they'll say a ghost. But then, if you ask the child what is she really and truly, they would still say a ghost."

Sometimes, children are better able to distinguish between what is pretend and what is real if they see the transformation, says Taylor.

"I tortured my own child this way," Taylor laughs.

Taylor recalls how scared her two-year-old daughter became when she woke up from a nap and found everyone around her in costumes.

"We had to immediately take off some of our costumes and say 'no, it's me, mom,'" Taylor says. "It didn't occur to me at the time when she fell asleep that she would be afraid when she woke up. But why not? Why wouldn't she be afraid? All of a sudden, nobody's explained this to her."

Explaining fact or fiction is one area in which adults seem to fall short. We take for granted that children will be able to make the distinction on their own, and often times they do. But when they don't, we worry about their psychological development.

"We tell them about animals that dress up and act like people-Winnie the Pooh, all these fantasy stories," says Taylor. "And we're not saying to them there really isn't a Winnie the Pooh, and animals can't talk and they don't dress up like people when we're not around."

In a way, it's no wonder children use these cues to create a world they believe to be real.

This behavior of using cues to determine what is fact or fiction is something we've carried through our lives to adulthood, says Woolley.

"For example, if we read something in the National Enquirer we have a different idea what's real than if we read it, say, in National Geographic," Woolley points out.

Likewise, when children get information from what they believe to be credible sources, they are more likely to believe it is true.

To test this theory, Woolley and her colleagues created a story about "cernets", a made-up thing. Half of the children were told that doctors collect cernets and use them in the hospital; the other children were told that ghosts collect cernets and then fly around with them at night. Not surprisingly, when asked whether cernets were real, the children who were told that doctors used cernets were more likely to believe they were real than those who heard about them in reference to ghosts.

In another study, Woolley looked at motivation as a form of reality check. She went to a preschool and told children about the "Candy Witch," who really liked candy and was willing to give children toys in exchange for their Halloween treats. However, the Candy Witch would only go to the children's houses if the children's parents called her; the child would then leave candy for the witch, go to sleep, and wake up in the morning to find a toy in the candy's place.

What Woolley found is that children who preferred a toy to candy had a stronger belief in the Candy Witch than those with a big sweet tooth. She also found that children whose parents participated in the ruse were even more likely to believe the Candy Witch was real. After all, somebody had to take away the candy and deliver a toy.

Having a credible source plus active reinforcement of a story helps shape children's ideas of what is true and what is not. Consider Santa Clause: children are told over and over about this jolly elf who shimmies down chimneys with a sack full of toys-but only if the child is good. Not only do parents tell this to their children, society reinforces it on television, in stores, and in school. And on December 25th, when a child wakes up to a gift-wrapped room, the child becomes a believer.

Ironically, the older a child becomes-four- and five-years-old, as opposed to two and three-the more likely he or she is to believe in the parents' fantasies.

"The traditional view is that younger kids are more incredulous and believe everything and live in a fantasy world and as the kids get older, they get more critical and skeptical," says Woolley. "[But] the older kids had stronger beliefs than the younger kids."

Part of that may be attributed to older children realizing how the fantasy works (for example: be good, get toys, give the witch candy, get toys), and therefore, wanting to believe in the fantasy even more. It's all part of normal cognitive development. Children begin moving from concrete fantasy to abstract fantasy; they begin to anticipate the outcome of a story, either one that's told to them or one they tell themselves. Such is the case with monsters under the bed as well as those that fly around on Halloween night.

Here is where two forms of thought diverge. The first theory states that children begin substituting their parents' rationale with their own, believing the fantasy is real-for instance, that monsters really do live under the bed but hide when a grown-up comes into the room. In this case, parents can help the child by providing him with tools, real or imagined, to handle the problem himself. Perhaps it's a special Halloween flashlight the child uses to reveal the person beneath the costume, or a special phrase the child can use to send the monsters outside.

The second theory is that children, by the age of four, are quite capable of distinguishing between fact and fantasy but simply have difficulty reminding themselves of what is real. This is called "discounting ability" and something we use almost every day as adults. We turn it on ("it's only make-up, that person's arm isn't really severed at the elbow"_ and we turn it off ("I can be in two places at once and do five things at a time"). In the case of children, Taylor says they're not good at keeping the awareness at the forefront of their consciousness, and need to be reminded of what they know is true.

"When you see a four-year-old being scared of the mom in the ghost costume, you shouldn't conclude they can't tell what's real and what's not, because we wouldn't conclude the adult can't tell what's real and what's not, even though they're freaked out at a scary move," Taylor says. "What they may have trouble with is reminding themselves of their knowledge. So they should know that even though it looks like a ghost, it really is mom."

They should know it, and they may know it, but they may not want to know it, because sometimes, it's fun to be afraid, especially at Halloween. If that's the case, psychologists say let your child-or your child's imaginary friend - set the parameters of scariness, and then indulge in their fantasies with them.

Who says you can't be a kid again?