Parenting tips obtained from hunter-gatherers in Africa may be the key to bringing up more contented children,researchers have suggested. The idea is based on studies of communities such as the Kung of Botswana,where each child is cared for by many adults. Kung children as young as four will help to look after younger ones and "baby-wearing", in which infants are carried in slings, is considered the norm.

According to Dr Nikhil Chaudhary, an evolutionary anthropologist at Cambridge University,these practices, known as alloparenting, could lead to less anxiety for children and parents.

Dr Annie Swanepoel, a child psychiatrist, believes that there are ways to incorporate them into western life. In Germany, one scheme has paired an old people's home with a nursery. The residents help to look after the children, an arrangement akin to alloparenting.Another measure could be encouraging friendships between children in different school years, to mirror the unsupervised mixed-age playgroups in hunter-gatherer communities.

In a paper published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry,researchers said that the western nuclear family was a recent invention which broke with evolutionary history. This abrupt shift to an"intensive mothering narrative", which suggests that mothers should manage childcare alone, was likely to have been harmful. "Such narratives can lead to maternal exhaustion and have dangerous consequences,"they wrote.

By contrast,in hunter-gatherer societies adults other than the parents can provide almost half of a child's care.One previous study looked at the Efé people of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It found that infants had an average of 14 alloparents a day by the time they were 18 weeks old, and were passed between caregivers eight times an hour.

Chaudhary said that parents now have less childcare support from family and social networks than during most of humans' evolutionary history, but introducing additional caregivers could reduce stress and maternal depression,which could have a "knock-on"benefit to a child's well being.An infant born to a hunter-gatherer society could have more than ten caregivers—this contrasts starkly to nursery settings in theUK where regulations call for a ratio of one carer to four children aged two to three.

While hunter-gatherer children learnt from observation and imitation in mixed-age playgroups,researchers said that western"instructive teaching", where pupils are asked to sit still, may contribute to conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Chaudhary said that Britain should explore the possibility that older siblings helping their parents "might also enhance their own social development."

Questions:
question_stem: According to the first two paragraphs, alloparenting refers to the practice of
choices: tag: A
text: sharing childcare among community members.

tag: B
text: assigning babies to specific adult caregivers.

tag: C
text: teaching parenting skills to older children.

tag: D
text: carrying infants around by their parents.
answer_key: A

question_stem: The scheme in Germany is mentioned to illustrate
choices: tag: A
text: an attempt to facilitate intergenerational communication.

tag: B
text: an approach to integrating alloparenting into western society.

tag: C
text: the conventional parenting style in western culture.

tag: D
text: the differences between western and African ways of living.
answer_key: B

question_stem: According to Paragraph 4 , the "intensive mothering narrative"
choices: tag: A
text: alleviates parenting pressure.

tag: B
text: consolidates family relationships.

tag: C
text: results in the child-centered family.

tag: D
text: departs from the course of evolution.
answer_key: D

question_stem: According to Paragraph 6, what can we learn about the nurseries in the UK?
choices: tag: A
text: They tend to fall short of official requirements.

tag: B
text: They have difficulty finding enough caregivers.

tag: C
text: They ought to improve their carer-to-child ratio.

tag: D
text: They should try to prevent parental depression.
answer_key: C

question_stem: Which of the following would be the best title for the text ?
choices: tag: A
text: Instructive Teaching: A Dilemma for Anxious Parents

tag: B
text: For a Happier Family, Learn from the Hunter-gatherers

tag: C
text: Mixed-age Playgroup, a Better Choice for Lonely Children

tag: D
text: Tracing the History of Parenting: from Africa to Europe
answer_key: B