Effect of Reality and Self-Management Therapies on Deficiency of Mother-Absent Adoloscents in Ogun State, Nigeria

Abstract The ability to relate well with the environment depends largely on the existence of a mother because the relationship between a mother and the child is very important for the social development of a child. However, the childhood loss of a mother presents a trauma that threatens the child's social development and effective peer relation. Thus, this study examined the effects of reality and self-management therapies on social deficiency of mother-absent adolescents. The quasi-experimental pretest/posttest control group research design was adopted for the study. The sample consisted of 65 students drawn from the population of Senior Secondary schools in Ogun State, Nigeria through multi-stage sampling process. The Reality and Self-Management Therapies were interventions in the treatment groups while the placebo was given motivation talk to keep them busy throughout the period of treatment. The following research instruments were adapted, re-validated and used to collect relevant data for the study which were titled as follows: Mother-Absent Adolescents’ Questionnaire (MAQ) with 0.72 reliability value while the Adolescents Social Adjustment Scale (ASAS) is 0.74. Three research hypotheses were tested in this study, data were analyzed using ANCOVA. The study found out that there exists a significant difference in the mean as a result of the experimental condition; there is no significant gender difference in the peer relation of participants exposed to reality and self-management therapies and control group and there exists no significant effect of parental occupation on peer relations of participants exposed to reality and self-management therapies and control group. It was recommended that Counsellors should impart self-management skills on this category of adolescents and other clients who have difficulty in relating with their peers with a view to resolving the challenge. Keywords: Reality Therapy, Self-management Therapy, Peer relation, Mother-absent Adolescents.