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2002-09-20

Yesterday when I arrived at Clay's daycare he was playing with one of the big kids. The director, Mrs. M. (whom I initially made the mistake of calling by her first name), has been saying for a while that he's wanted to play with them but she was afraid to let him. But now she's letting him, and it is the cutest thing. This one little girl, Ingrid, watches out for him.

Clay was clearly loving it. In fact, when I picked him up from his position on the floor, he squawked briefly. Ordinarily when I arrive, one of the teachers is holding him. Had he squawked upon being passed from one of them to me, I would've had trouble, but as it was, I felt fine.

The literature on child development says that until the age of two or three, children don't benefit from the presence of other children. At least that's what the literature said when I studied it in graduate school in the mid 1980s. I don't really buy it, though. Or maybe it depends on the temperment of the child. At home, Clay is continually trying to engage the dogs; they walk away, uninterested at best.

As long as Mrs. M. and her helpers watch closely and insist they treat him gently, I think he does benefit from being around the older children, and vice versa. The interage grouping was one of the biggest attractions for me about this center. I'm not desperate for Clay to develop quickly for its own sake, but according to Mrs. M., he seems to be on the fast track on his own. Being around well-behaved and well-supervised older children will probably stretch him in a way that wouldn't happen if he was in a room with only other infants.

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