Can Children Understand the Difference Between Fantasy and Reality?

Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsInfluence of Children’s DevelopmentHow Children Know the DifferenceHow Can Adults Help ChildrenSummary

Table of ContentsView All

View All

Table of Contents

Influence of Children’s Development

How Children Know the Difference

How Can Adults Help Children

Summary

Close

Young children are often immersed in fantasy, and therefore, parents, teachers, and even scholars often think of them as being unable to distinguish reality from unreality. However, research suggests that children are more thoughtful about the differences between fantasy and reality than they may appear to adults.

In fact, children use many of the same cues as adults to decide whether something is real or not. So while young children are unable to distinguish fantasy from reality as successfully as adults, they become more capable of doing so as they advance developmentally and acquire more knowledge about the world.

How Children’s Development Impacts Their Understanding of Fantasy and Reality

Around the age of 2, children begin toplay pretend.Their flip-flop becomes a telephone, the broom becomes a horse, and they can do all of their cooking on top of a cardboard box. They also believe infantasy beingslike the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, and it is not uncommon to have imaginary friends. Indeed, young children have difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality.

Symbolic Thinking and Pretend Play

Between the ages of 7 and 11, their ability to think logically increases, and they become increasingly focused on realism. Although sci-fi and fantasy are still valued as entertainment, it is no longer confused with reality.

Developing More Logical Thought Processes

What Cues Do Children Use to Distinguish Between Fantasy and Reality?

Research has shown that children and adults tend to use similar methods and rely on similar cues to distinguish between fantasy and reality. These methods and cues are discussed below.

Evaluating Context

When adults are presented with new information, we judge the truth of that information based on the context in which we find it.

A study involving 3- to 6-year-olds showed that children also used context clues when they were told about animals they weren’t familiar with. When they heard that the new animals were associated with dragons or ghosts—a fantastical context—they were less likely to believe the animals really existed than if they were told they were associated with doctors or scientists—a scientific context. These results were seen with participants as young as 4 years old.

Existing Knowledge

Another thing adults do when we encounter new information is compare it to the knowledge we already possess. If what we know lends support to the new information, we’ll decide it’s plausible.

However, if the information doesn’t make sense based on what we already know about the world, we’ll reject it as false.

Research involving children between the ages of 5 and 8 has shown that children also use their existing knowledge to judge the reliability of new information.The only difference is that children haveacquired less knowledgeabout the world than adults have.

As children mature and acquire more knowledge about the laws of nature and physics, they become more capable of accurately distinguishing fantasy from reality.

Some fantasies may take longer to shake than others. For instance, children may realize that Wile E. Coyote is always OK after falling off of a cliff or blowing himself up, but hang on to the magic of Santa Claus quite a bit longer. Indeed, they have been collecting evidence that Santa Claus is real for quite some time.

Evaluating the Source

Although this has become more challenging today when there are so many sources of information that different people judgedifferent sources as more or less reliable, we should generally be able to agree that if we read about the discovery of aliens on a blog that we’ve never heard of, we should be skeptical of the information. In contrast, if we read about the news on the website for NASA, we should be more inclined to believe it.

Adults have a tendency to bombard young children withstories about magical events and fantastical beings, such as giant beanstalks, talking wolves, houses made of candy, and overweight men who slide down chimneys and deliver gifts on Christmas.

Young children will slowly develop an understanding of who they can trust for information, similar to adults.

Information coming from atrusted source(such as parents) makes children more willing to believe in fantasy.

Evaluating Expertise

Of course, much of the information both adults and children are exposed to is the result of encounters with other people. However, we don’tbelieve just anyone. Adults are far more likely to believe that a specific kind of food isn’t good for us if we hear it from a doctor acquaintance on LinkedIn than we are if we hear it from our conspiracy theoristFacebookfriend.

When child study participants were asked to decide if a reported discovery of a new kind of fish was real or not, they were more likely to believe the fish existed if a zookeeper or marine biologist, someone who would be considered an expert, claimed it than if their older sibling, a non-expert, did so.

How Can Adults Help Children Learn to Distinguish Fantasy from Reality?

Children know adults are more knowledgeable than they are, and therefore they are more likely to believe the information that adults share with them than information that comes from other children. Consequently, adults can play a role in helping children learn to understand the difference between fantasy and reality.

That said, if your child believes in Santa Claus or Big Bird, psychology scholar Jacqueline Woolley says there’s no reason to discourage them.Children don’t come to distrust adults when they learn that these fantasy figures aren’t real.

As a child’s brain develops and they acquire new life experiences, they learn to discern fantasy from reality the same way adults do. Although they love to play pretend, young children begin to understand the principles of physical reality as early as age 4 or 5, understanding that horses don’t talk and pigs can’t fly.

One of the final blows to a child’s magical thinking is when they learn that their parents were pretending to be Santa every year. Nevertheless, plenty of adults still make wishes when they blow out their birthday candles, and love sci-fi entertainment that provides an escape from reality.

Social and Emotional Development in Early Childhood

7 SourcesVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Woolley JD.Thinking about fantasy: Are children fundamentally different thinkers and believers from adults?Child Dev. 1997;68(6):991-1011. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.1997.tb01975.xValkenburg PM, Cantor J.Children’s likes and dislikes of entertainment programs. In: Zillman D, Vorderer P, eds.Media Entertainment: The Psychology of Its Appeal. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers; 2000:135-152.Howard S.Unbalanced minds? Children thinking about television. In: Howard S, ed.Wired Up: Young People And The Electronic Media. Routledge;1998:55-74.Woolley JD, Van Reet J.Effects of context on judgments concerning the reality status of novel entities.Child Dev. 2006;77(6):1778-1793. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00973.xLopez-Mobilia G, Woolley J.Interactions between knowledge and testimony in children’s reality-status judgments.Journal of Cognition and Development. 2016;17(3):486-504. doi:10.1080/15248372.2015.1061529Woolley JD.Why children believe (or not) that Santa Claus exists.The Conversation;2016.Singer DG, Singer JL.Make-believe play, imagination, and creativity: Links to children’s media exposure. In: Calvert S, Wilson B, eds.The Handbook Of Children, Media, And Development. Wiley-Blackwell;2011:290-308. doi:10.1002/9781444302752.ch13

7 Sources

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Woolley JD.Thinking about fantasy: Are children fundamentally different thinkers and believers from adults?Child Dev. 1997;68(6):991-1011. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.1997.tb01975.xValkenburg PM, Cantor J.Children’s likes and dislikes of entertainment programs. In: Zillman D, Vorderer P, eds.Media Entertainment: The Psychology of Its Appeal. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers; 2000:135-152.Howard S.Unbalanced minds? Children thinking about television. In: Howard S, ed.Wired Up: Young People And The Electronic Media. Routledge;1998:55-74.Woolley JD, Van Reet J.Effects of context on judgments concerning the reality status of novel entities.Child Dev. 2006;77(6):1778-1793. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00973.xLopez-Mobilia G, Woolley J.Interactions between knowledge and testimony in children’s reality-status judgments.Journal of Cognition and Development. 2016;17(3):486-504. doi:10.1080/15248372.2015.1061529Woolley JD.Why children believe (or not) that Santa Claus exists.The Conversation;2016.Singer DG, Singer JL.Make-believe play, imagination, and creativity: Links to children’s media exposure. In: Calvert S, Wilson B, eds.The Handbook Of Children, Media, And Development. Wiley-Blackwell;2011:290-308. doi:10.1002/9781444302752.ch13

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

Woolley JD.Thinking about fantasy: Are children fundamentally different thinkers and believers from adults?Child Dev. 1997;68(6):991-1011. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.1997.tb01975.xValkenburg PM, Cantor J.Children’s likes and dislikes of entertainment programs. In: Zillman D, Vorderer P, eds.Media Entertainment: The Psychology of Its Appeal. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers; 2000:135-152.Howard S.Unbalanced minds? Children thinking about television. In: Howard S, ed.Wired Up: Young People And The Electronic Media. Routledge;1998:55-74.Woolley JD, Van Reet J.Effects of context on judgments concerning the reality status of novel entities.Child Dev. 2006;77(6):1778-1793. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00973.xLopez-Mobilia G, Woolley J.Interactions between knowledge and testimony in children’s reality-status judgments.Journal of Cognition and Development. 2016;17(3):486-504. doi:10.1080/15248372.2015.1061529Woolley JD.Why children believe (or not) that Santa Claus exists.The Conversation;2016.Singer DG, Singer JL.Make-believe play, imagination, and creativity: Links to children’s media exposure. In: Calvert S, Wilson B, eds.The Handbook Of Children, Media, And Development. Wiley-Blackwell;2011:290-308. doi:10.1002/9781444302752.ch13

Woolley JD.Thinking about fantasy: Are children fundamentally different thinkers and believers from adults?Child Dev. 1997;68(6):991-1011. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.1997.tb01975.x

Valkenburg PM, Cantor J.Children’s likes and dislikes of entertainment programs. In: Zillman D, Vorderer P, eds.Media Entertainment: The Psychology of Its Appeal. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers; 2000:135-152.

Howard S.Unbalanced minds? Children thinking about television. In: Howard S, ed.Wired Up: Young People And The Electronic Media. Routledge;1998:55-74.

Woolley JD, Van Reet J.Effects of context on judgments concerning the reality status of novel entities.Child Dev. 2006;77(6):1778-1793. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00973.x

Lopez-Mobilia G, Woolley J.Interactions between knowledge and testimony in children’s reality-status judgments.Journal of Cognition and Development. 2016;17(3):486-504. doi:10.1080/15248372.2015.1061529

Woolley JD.Why children believe (or not) that Santa Claus exists.The Conversation;2016.

Singer DG, Singer JL.Make-believe play, imagination, and creativity: Links to children’s media exposure. In: Calvert S, Wilson B, eds.The Handbook Of Children, Media, And Development. Wiley-Blackwell;2011:290-308. doi:10.1002/9781444302752.ch13

Meet Our Review Board

Share Feedback

Was this page helpful?Thanks for your feedback!What is your feedback?HelpfulReport an ErrorOtherSubmit

Was this page helpful?

Thanks for your feedback!

What is your feedback?HelpfulReport an ErrorOtherSubmit

What is your feedback?