Influence of maternal acceptance on selfesteem as expressed by secondary school students in Kwara State

Abstract

Early intimacy between the mother and the child makes the mother the most significant person in the life of the child. Thus, maternal acceptance plays an inestimable role in the process of child’s personality development. This study therefore investigated the influence of maternal acceptance on self-esteem as expressed by secondary school students in Kwara State. Simple random sampling technique was adopted for the selection of 450 respondents that participated in the study. The instrument used for the study was a questionnaire tagged ‘‘Influence of Maternal Acceptance on Self-Esteem Questionnaire’’ (IMASEQ).The instrument consisted of 20 items which elicited information from the randomly selected respondents. The main research question that was generated for the study sought to establish the influence of maternal acceptance on the self-esteem as expressed by secondary school students .The findings revealed that maternal acceptance has positive influence on the self-esteem and this helps the students to develop self confidence and improve on their academic achievements. Two null hypotheses were formulated and tested and the data collected were analyzed using frequency counts, simple percentages, t-test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA).The null hypotheses generated were tested at 0.05 alpha level of significance. The results indicated that gender and class level did not influence the views of the respondents. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended that School Counsellors should organize talks with parents especially on the importance of maternal acceptance to school-going adolescents. It was also recommended that various agencies should organize seminars on the need for adequate maternal acceptance. Thus, Government agencies and the Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) should put in place Community Counselling programmes to sensitize parents on their roles.

Keywords: Maternal Acceptance, Parental Attitude, Self-esteem, School-going Adolescents, Influence