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I heard from a reputable source (okay, it was the Ellen DeGeneres Show) that children who have imaginary friends are more likely to succeed academically, have good socialisation skills and have fun.

This is brilliant news for my son. He has an entire imaginary family. A brother, a sister and his own baby. Baby has had several birthdays, yet is still one year old and baby is responsible for a lot of questionable behaviour in my house.

Kids know how to have fun. It’s innate to most of them. They actively seek fun scenarios.

But is motherhood killing your fun? As we become adults, and particularly when we become mothers, we tend to take life a little more seriously.

Many women find themselves trying to juggle the challenges of life and sometimes we need a little help with how we are coping.

With small adjustments, you can make enormous changes to your family life, career, happiness and self-esteem. The process is known as cognitive reframing or changing how you choose to think. That’s all. Nothing magical or unachievable.

As humans, it is natural for us to utilise unhelpful thinking styles occasionally. We all do.

Fun stoppers include:

  • Overgeneralising: ”Nothing ever works how I planned”
  • Jumping to conclusions: Presuming what others are thinking or predicting what will happen in the future
  • All or nothing: “Either I do it perfectly or I won’t do it”
  • Eliminating the positive: Focusing on the negative and deciding what you have achieved does not count
  • Catastrophising (my fave word – I’m a bit of a geek): Blowing things out of proportion
  • Minimisation: Making something seem more trivial than it is
  • Emotional logic: “I feel nervous so I must be a fool”
  • Shoulda’s: ”I should do …” , “I need to do …”
  • Loose labelling: Labelling self or others negatively
  • Blame: Blaming self for something that’s not entirely your fault or placing blame solely on others.

Don’t be worried if many of these resonate with you. We all use them at some point.

When you are finding yourself using them often and your thoughts, choices and activities are being affected adversely; it might be time to do some cognitive reframing.

It sounds like a lot of work and it does take effort, but the beauty of our thoughts are that that are CHANGEABLE and CONTROLLABLE. We have the ability to make significant changes to our lives, just by changes to our thoughts.

If all else fails, it might be time for an imaginary friend.

“Thinking mum” image from Shutterstock
  • An interesting read. My daughter as yet has not had an imaginary friend but often talks to her toys. She is an only child too.

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  • My daughter has two imaginary friends, fingers crossed the path ahead is glorious for her. I will not try and encourage her away from them again!!

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  • I wish my imaginary friend would clean, cook, attend to the kids in the middle of the night…. lol
    Yes, we all need some childhood fun, life is so much more interesting! 🙂

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  • and whats wrong with imaginary friends 😛

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  • What a fantastic article. I would be very surprised if anyone couldn’t identify with at least one or two of the points listed.

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  • interesting fact about imaginary friends!

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  • That was an interesting read.

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  • I really got a lot out of this well written article thinking I might make contact with you via your Facebook page I think I could really benefit from your advice find myself slipping into a dark lonely place. Thanks for sharing.


    • Hi. Don’t hesitate to contact me anytime! Either Facebook, email (jacqueline@avidityassociation.com.au) or phone (0412 433 227). I’d love to chat to you. Warm Regards. Jacq x

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  • I enjoyed reading this article, some good points

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  • I am definately like 8 of the 10 fun stoppers! Must stop it!

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  • I think it has killed my fun in some ways. In others it has opened me up to a different world

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  • So hard to balance everything when you’re a parent, it’s easy to lsoe sight of your own needs and wants. Hard to remember what it was like to go out to a meal without a kid hanging off your shoulders…

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  • It does take a while to adjust to motherhood, having everything that is perfect is something that doesn’t matter, just enjoy take things as they come.

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  • It does take a while to adjust to motherhood, staying at home, working part-time etc, Its constantly evolving as your children grow up. We all have good and bad days, learning as we go.

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  • Thanks ladies. All mums experience those thoughts so frequently – It’s nice to sometimes have some tools or reminders to flip them around.
    P.s. – I don’t know if anything really stops the motherhood craziness does it? We all just do our best 🙂
    Have a great day. Jacqueline Potter x

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  • Oh gosh I am guilty of those thoughts and statements more regularly than I would like to admit. Goal today is to be aware of my thoughts and statements and try to flip them around.
    Lets do this!
    Thanks for the spotlight on it.

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  • I would say I use to be unhappy due to some of those things but now I love where I am and just do what I can when I want to.

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  • Hmmm but will it solve the motherhood craziness? 😛

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  • Great blog really enjoyed reading it, as most of my kids have had imagine friends.

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