Dr. Elisabeth Guthrie on a Child's Ability to Distinguish Fantasy from Realty

(October 20, 2009)  

As investigators consider whether to file felony charges against the Colorado couple suspected of crafting the riveting boy-supposedly-in-the-balloon story, attention is focusing on the boy himself -- specifically the line that many people have taken to be a ratting out of his father. Falcon Heene, all of 6 years old and at the center of a sudden and overwhelming media frenzy, commented to father Richard Heene during a CNN interview: "You had said that we did this for a show."

 

Some viewers suspected the boy was simply confused about what had happened. After all, the family had been on a reality show, and don't kids that young have trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality?

 

"An 8-year-old would be much better" at distinguishing reality, says Dr. Elisabeth Guthrie, associate clinical professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at Columbia University. "And a 4-year-old is more likely to imagine things, but a 6-year-old is in between."

Kids that age may not only believe in the tooth fairy, but even profess to have seen her.

 

"They may fuse elements of fairies they've heard about, or seen at Halloween, and they're trying to put it together, to make sense out of it," Guthrie says. "They're trying to use elements of reality and fantasy to make a cohesive narrative. As they get older, of course, they know that the tooth fairy is really their mother."

  

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