While they’re around, leading children into basements, galloping around the house or engaging 5-year-olds in conversation, imaginary companions can worry parents.

Is there something a parent can or should do? Ban them from visiting? Sit back and enjoy the show? Or clench one’s teeth and wait for them to go away?

“They should recognize the beauty of this fantasy world,” says Karen Owens, author of three books on childhood psychology. “Wouldn’t you like to recapture those feelings in your adult life? To me it’s such a wonderful time. Maybe parents should vicariously experience their children’s joy.”

“Parents often worry when they find out their child has an imaginary friend. They shouldn’t,” writes Georgia Witkin, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York, in her book, “KidStress” (Viking). “Imaginary friends can be one of kids’ favorite and most effective stress-coping strategies. Instead of discouraging it, take notes.”

Marjorie Taylor, who had studied children’s imaginary friends for 10 years, agrees that parents can learn something from their child’s fictional companion.

“Parents can use imaginary friends to find out what is going on in a child’s life,” she says. “If a child doesn’t like going to school, ask. Maybe the child will tell you, ‘Blah-Blah is having a hard time at recess and doesn’t like to go to school.’ It’s the child who is having the problem.”

One thing parents shouldn’t do is brand a child a liar for his or her adventures with an imaginary companion. And the occasional childhood misstep that gets blamed on an imaginary friend shouldn’t alarm parents either.

“They’re shifting blame,” Owens says. “‘I didn’t eat the cookie, Ralph ate it.’ A lot of parents get a little concerned. But this kind of lying – that seems like a harsh term – is relatively common and harmless in young children. So the same thing is kind of applicable with ‘Ralph ate the cookie.”‘

As Taylor reiterates, imaginary friends really do serve a purpose and prepare a child for later life.

“Children are helpless in many ways; they’re small, they’re not real strong, they’re dependent on others,” she says. “But this is something that they can do if they are sad or bored – use their imaginations.

“And your imagination is something that’s with you all your life.” (KRT)