ABSTRACT
The ecocultural features associated with sibling care and shared management of children are those which make child care more efficient, make families more adaptive in their subsistence efforts, and promote wider parental and cultural goals regarding appropriate socialization for children. Caretaking learned in the sibling group during childhood is influenced by ecocultural adaptations and cultural ideas about childhood and parenthood. The data that will be used to illustrate shared function parent training are drawn from mothers and children in two societies where sibling care is common: the Abaluyia of Western Kenya and Hawaiian- American families in Hawaii. Children caring for other children is a common sight for even a casual traveler in non-Western cultures throughout most of the world. Descriptions can be found in life history and autobiographical materials by participants themselves and appear in novels, stories, and journalistic accounts.
