ABSTRACT
The study was carried out to determine the Influence of Custodian Arrangements on Emotional and Social Behaviour of children in Abuja, Federal Capital Territory, Nigeria. The study made use of descriptive survey research design. The population of 27,096 for the study was purposively selected. Six hundred and fourty-eight (648) respondents out of 27,096 were selected from 25 Junior Secondary schools that were systematically selected out of 101 in Abuja using proportional sampling procedure. Five objectives, five research questions and four null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The instrument used for data collection was the questionnaire. The method of data analysis included frequency count and percentage for the biodata while mean was used to find the level of opinion of the respondents to answer the research questions. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to test hypotheses 1 and 2, while t-test statistics was used to test hypotheses 3 and 4 at 0.05 level of significance. Three out of the four null hypotheses were rejected. Among the findings of the study were; Single parents, guardianship and foster parent had positive influence while step parent custodian arrangement had negative influence on emotional behaviour of children. Single parents and guardianship custodian arrangements had positive influence while foster and step parent had negative influence on their social behaviour. The influence of custodian arrangements on emotional behaviour was more on female students than their male counterparts. Recommendations were made among which were that Junior Secondary Schools should organize Parents/Teachers Association meetings in the Schools to give parental education and counseling to custodian parents in order to improve the knowledge and strategies of meeting every day challenges of child upbringing. Custodian parents should assist the children in their custody to build their emotional and social behaviour by proper guidance and encouragement. Custodian parents should continue to build on the positive emotional behaviour of children in their custody by loving, understanding and caring for them. This study will serve as a stepping stone in providing solution to the problems associated with influence of custodian arrangements on emotional and social behaviour of children.