Hi Terry--
With my two kids, I see lots of attachments to in-animate objects--but I have to admit that difficult child's attachments do seem a bit "off".
My son, for example, just LOVES stuffed animals--uses them almost as "imaginary friends" sometimes....but also loves his action figures, Pokemon cards, army men. Pretty normal stuff...
difficult child on the other hand, when she was very little had a stuffed animal that she regarded as alive. That might not sound so strange, except that she used to expect it to do things that living creatures would --like "heal" if something happened to it....or try to follow her to school.
These days, she has developed an unhealthy attachment to "Twilight" and other vampire books. (For anyone who is not familiar with the story....the main character in Twilight is a vampire named Edward). Well, difficult child has "Edward" written all over her stuff--her clothes, her shoes, her furniture.
And when we had a recent tornado in our area and we all headed for cover--difficult child was frantically trying to gather all of her books to take to the shelter. We were all yelling at her "Leave them! Leave them! Grab your shoes and let's GO!!!!" And she was crying trying to carry all these books.....
I do worry that she is confused and that, as you say, these "attachments" seem to take the place of more appropriate human relationships.
We are working on trying to diminish her emphasis on these "objects" and trying to get her involved in more healthy, normal, age-appropriate activities and interests.
--DaisyF
