Imaginary characters

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-24-2003
Imaginary characters
9
Mon, 02-27-2006 - 11:19am

Hi. I haven't posted in awhile, but I have a question, about which, I can't seem to get a straight answer. My daughter is 3.5 and has been diagnosed pdd-nos. She's smart and quirky and a big challenge to her tired mom. Right now my biggest challenge is to decide how to deal with her alter-personas. She never wants to "be" herself. She is always someone else. Generally it is Elmo or Gina (from Sesame Street), but sometimes its a dog, mommy, or one of the Little Einsteins (I love this show). Depending on who she is pretending to be I get different responses to questions and requests, and just generally different behavior. Now, this can be very helpful to me. These characters are pretty one-dimensional and can be, um, guided more efficiently than "Kivrin". However, I'm not sure I'm doing her any favors in the long-run by humoring her. What do you guys think?

Thanks in Advance
Mary

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-19-2005
Mon, 02-27-2006 - 11:42am

Mary,

I don't have advice, but am glad to know my son is not the only one who does this. I too wonder how far to let it go. He is also almost 4 and he is consistently "Leo" from the little Einsteins. I am "June" and (this is a weird one) my DH is "Rocket." He now refers to us more often as Rocket and June than as Momma or Daddy.

Every once in awhile I ask him his real name, my real name, and he knows. I even tried to tell him "Leo, Rocket" etc. were our "nicknames" and he liked that idea.

His behavior doesn't really change with the persona though. It's more like I'll say, "Eric, let's get dressed" and he'll say, "I'm not Eric, I'm Leo." But then he'll get dressed. He also tells everyone working with him (teacher, ST, OT etc.) that he is Leo and they just say ok then kind of ignore it. You ask him to write his name and half the time he writes Leo, which sort of bothers me.

I am hoping this will pass. For several months he had an imaginary friend, she was also a tv character and he talked to her etc. That actually bothered me more and that has disappeared now. So maybe this will too.

I'd be curious about other people's take on this. It does seem a little odd, but maybe it's not.

Katherine (aka "June")

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Registered: 02-24-2004
Mon, 02-27-2006 - 1:00pm

Nathan has an imaginary friend....Spongebob. He comes out to play occasionally, but not alot. Nathan also likes to pretend to be the characters from Star Wars. He likes to be Count Dooku, Anikan, and Darth Vader too. But he doesn't involve the rest of the family. He prefers to play alone....in his head and in his own world!!! I try to play with him, but I get reprimanded everytime!! LOL

michelle

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Registered: 03-31-2003
Mon, 02-27-2006 - 2:06pm

David (AS) is 8, and he is very stuck in that fantasy world. He pretends to be different characters, usually Lego-related characters, and he wants me to "pretend to be David". It used to be much more tiresome, because he would get upset if I didn't to EXACTLY what he wanted. Like, every single night, I have to be David and come over to some character's house for a sleepover. Now, we're able to keep in short and sweet, but in the past, he wanted me to go through transportations chutes and stuff, and he'd get mad if I didn't do it exactly right.

There isn't a whole lot of great acting that goes along with each character, but he kind of dictates a script. Like, I'm sitting there writing out a grocery list, and he'll say, "Pretend you're David and I'm Krekka, and you see that I am carrying something so you ask me what it is." Now, I can tell him that I'm busy and don't want to play, but it doesn't make a bit of difference. Well, when he was little, it didn't make any difference. He would continue on, acting as if I'm a willing partner, and getting furious when I do things wrong. Now that he's older, he *hears* me saying that I don't want to play, and he gets REALLY sad. So...I spend a lot of time "pretending to be David."

When he was 4-5, he used to say that every night at midnight he went to Elmo's house. I bet you don't know this, but Elmo lives in a gigantic underground labyrinth of a house. It has a few overground parts, including the fire department's practice building and a local hotel that we HAD to drive past each day. Elmo has a large collection of violent and "inappropriate" movies. He has a million "grey garbage bins", which are the ones for everything that isn't recycle or food-waste. Our city has a really good recycle program, but Elmo is a rebel, and he throws EVERYTHING in the grey bins, including old batteries and aluminum cans. He also has a huge mad science lab, and he spends a lot of time on slightly creepy cloning projects and working with toxic chemical. That's the kind of stuff that was going on in my little boy's head. LOL!

So, yes, we've got imaginary characters here, too. That used to confuse me, because I had read in several places that ASD kids don't pretend. Maybe some don't, but many do a LOT.

Evelyn

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Registered: 07-24-2003
Mon, 02-27-2006 - 3:21pm

Your son sounds a lot like my daughter. She has scripts and tells me exactly what to do. Just to make sure I'm paying attention she often springs pop-quizzes. "Who am I? Right, I'm Elmo! Who are you?" And she has real problems when I won't or can't play along. The biggest problems come up when she pretends to be an adult (Gina, Mommy, Mr. Elmo (Elmo's daddy)), because she won't listen to me. She feels that when she is an adult she should not have to do what I tell her because I have no authority. This can make bedtime a nightmare and stop shopping trips before they really get started.

So, you think playing along is all right? I keep reading things that say I should limit the time I give to her obsessions, but not playing along can cause so much difficulty and she's soooo much more helpful when she's Elmo. I don't want to be selfish, but it's tricky to know what good parenting for a quirky kid is.

Mary

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Registered: 07-24-2003
Mon, 02-27-2006 - 3:39pm

Kivrin likes to be Leo too! Except when we're in the car (Rocket) and then she's Quincy because Leo drives. At home I have to be June and daddy is Quincy or Annie. Hmmmm I won't what our ASD kids are so attracted to in Leo?

And I wouldn't say so much that Kivrin's personality changes, but that her range of response change with each character. (except for Little puppy, how crawls barks and licks). If she's Elmo and I remember to call her Elmo she will answer questions and respond easily to requests. If she's Gina she will get bossy and be more likely to refuse requests. Leo cooperates better than Elmo or Gina. Beyond that she still speaks the same way and walks the same way, ect...

When I say "Kivrin go change your pants, please." She'll always stop and stare at me and say "No. I'm Elmo (or Gina or Leo or puppy or whatever). Tell Elmo to change his pants." And I have to say "Elmo, go change your pants, please." before she'll do it. This sort of thing can be very frustrating when the request is not changing pants, but to stop running away from me in the grocery store. Even worse when I can't remember who she's pretending to be. So, there I am yelling "Stop Kivrin, I mean Stop Elmo, I mean Stop Leo...." until I get it right and she stops running at full speed down the frozen food aisle. I have, on occassion had to abandon my cart and run after her because I just can't come up with the right name. And, since we have to go to the same store all the time to avoid melt-downs in unexpected environments it's hard to pretend like we're just having a bad day.

Mary

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Registered: 02-06-2006
Tue, 02-28-2006 - 10:53pm

My 8 yr old has for years pretended at the level you are talking about. Pretending to be cats or dogs are the favorite, but sometimes she will also track into a movie character and "become" someone else. I think it is a skill that some AS/PDD kiddos have. I don't see anything wrong with letting them - within reason. After an incident at daycare where she got in a ton of trouble for licking toes, sniffing peoples butts & then deciding to try to go to the bathroom like a dog...it was messy & really didn't go over well with the teacher in her room (but the director & I both laughed at the whole thing) - I taught my dd that there were appropriate times/places for her acting like an animal or someone other than herself. The interesting thing that I found that works to help her transition from one thing to herself is to literally "shake" herself out of the character - like shedding a skin. So, say she would be a kitty & it was time to be herself - I would say, "What a nice kitty you have been, but now it's time to be Brianna - so shake it off & be Brianna now." She will literally shake like she is shedding the "kitty" and be herself.

That said, I have another one for you - Brianna also has an imaginary friend - that she hates. He is bad & gets in trouble - she gets completely disgusted when he *appears* and yells at him - ignores him - it's very strange. I don't know that I have ever seen someone with an imaginary friend that isn't a *friend*. Luckily Dexter doesn't come around very often.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-26-2005
Wed, 03-01-2006 - 12:08am
I have the same problem with DS who is almost 3. He "Chugs" around the house all day pretending to be one of the Thomas the Tank characters. It is a little annoying sometimes because if I ask him a question he'll tell me he's not a little boy he's a train and to call him whoever he is at that very moment(it changes every couple of minutes)LOL. To be honest I don't really mind it because I never thought I would ever see him pretend play.
Teresa
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Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 03-01-2006 - 12:41am

For years Mike would "Become" his latest most favorite character. Only you couldn't know about it or say anything about him being that character. Then as he got older he still does it but it is not as obvious. For instance, after seeing the more recent Star Wars he became broody and would have these looks that were totally the teenage Anakin Skywalker adn would use lots of his lines. When he is goofy he often takes on a Jim Carey persona, or some cartoon.

He has times where he goes into his own head and becomes his latest Character still, but not as much as then. I really think perhaps it was his way of learning social behavior. Our kids don't learn social behavior in a natural way. So I think sometimes some bright little aspies tend to pick it up by practicing these characters.

Mike STUDIES characters. Thier mannerisms, thier comments, jokes, moods until he has them to a tee adn uses them. It has to be hard when social skills, conversations and body movements don't come naturally so this bright little guy has used these methods to learn those skills even if not in a natural way. And he is still learning them.

However, now instead of BEING Steve from Blue's Clues for a year, or Anakin for 6 months, he varies. He is a little spongebob, and a little anakin, and a little Jak (Jak and Daxster video game) and a little of the boy from Charlie and the chocolate factory, and a little from chronicles of narnia, and a little Gollum (lol when he is grumpy). Depending on his mood and latest obsessions on which he will be more of.

Cait is completely different. She used to pretend to be an animal all the time too. In 1st grade the kids in her class had her eating dirt pretending it was dog food. UGH. But that is over. Cait is just her own person. She doesn't pretend to BE someone or something else anymore. She is still obsessed with animals. But she doesn't copy characters like Mike does. No more than the regular teen girl trying to be Hillary Duff.

Renee

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iVillage Member
Registered: 07-24-2003
Wed, 03-01-2006 - 12:23pm

That's funny about Dexter. Maybe its a coping mechanism...a way of dealing with frustrations that she can't express in other ways. Sometimes when we're having a stressful really day (like our recent hellish shopping outing) she will "be" Gina from Sesame Street and constantly berate Elmo for being bad and getting in trouble. Although I try to handle behavior things with Kivrin in a more positive way, I know she's picking up on my stress when things are going very badly. When she starts to yell at Elmo (and I honestly never yell. Just not me.) I know its seriously time to stop what we're doing and regroup. If possible we go for a Keva Juice and relax, or go immediatly to the nearest park. Elmo's behavior generally improves after that.

Mary