ABSTRACT
The quality of nursery age children’s relationships is changing, both within the family and beyond the family, as they get to know other children and adults in the community. The experience of having to share nursery school staff with many others may also raise anxieties. Children in single parent families, or in families where another language is spoken, may also face anxieties about being in a group that they may experience as too large or as strange. The feeling of belonging to a nursery school may form an important part of a child’s identity. Sitting in a circle listening to a story read by the teacher, and participating in giving one’s reaction, can be a fun, new experience. Nursery age children experience time in a subjective, emotional manner. Nursery age children are developing the capacity to relate to peers and older children in the nuclear family, the wider family, and at school.
