My thoughts are taking shape in this private area. Thank you for providing an appropriate forum for such offerings. You mention Julian Barbour on your site. Forgive me for being ignorant,I have had this question on my mind for some time. I think that the progression of time is due to the cosmological scale expansion.
Local systems have no boundaries in either spatial or temporal sense.
It can extend to any place far from its center of mass. This extension does not require time, for in a local system, no time is necessary to reach any point of the system. It is an inside-world as our mind. The extent of our experience of it seems to control our perception of the speed of it's passage. The child may be 5yrs.