It is well recognized that ADHD ‘runs in families’ with formal hereditability at about 80%, higher than most other psychiatric disorders. However, it remains unclear which genetic mechanisms are responsible given that a single nucleotide variant only accounts for 22% of this. (Grimm et al 2020). While medication is usually considered helpful in addressing core behavioral symptoms it is also recognized that it is not a long term ‘cure’ and some form of therapy is also recommended.
What Advice are Parents Given?
Advice given to parents and teachers managing a child with ADHD focusses on positive parenting, discipline strategies, and help with organization and problem solving for day-to-day challenges. Adults are asked to model and encourage positive social behaviours to support improved relationships with peers. Unfortunately, the skills a parent is instructed to teach their child, are often the very ones they themselves have found challenging. The risk is that the vicious cycle of helplessness and failure experienced by the parent throughout their lives is once again replicated in their parenting.
When the Parent is Diagnosed with ADHD
While there is general recognition that effective parenting is important in supporting children with ADHD, there has been less focus on parenting styles of adults with this diagnosis. van Steijn et al (2013) explored the combined influence of a child diagnosis of ASD or ADHD and a similar diagnosis in the parent. Their results, gathered from 96 families, indicate that ‘both fathers and mothers alike tend to apply a less authoritative parenting style towards affected and unaffected children, and a more permissive parenting style towards affected children.’ They conclude that only the permissive style, and not authoritarian or authoritative parenting, is evoked by their ADHD child and speculated that parents may use less control and punishment for fear of confrontation or from a general sense of being unable to exercise authority over the child. They also noted that when scores for father’s ADHD and mothers for ASD were high, they were more permissive to their unaffected children.
What Does an ADHD Parent and Child Need?
One can only imagine the challenge of parenting for a person who is already struggling to maintain order out of chaos. Work with families that addresses parenting of all children and supports the adults to adopt an authoritative style removes the focus from ‘problem’ child or parent to a more coherent approach effective for all their children. The practitioner is challenged to develop strategies and advice that maximises the parent’s capacity to both adopt for themselves and also teach their children more effective ways of being in the world and relationship. This encompassing perspective provides possibility for change in both generations.
Grimm, O.& Kranz,T. & Andreas Reif, A. Genetics of ADHD: What Should the Clinician Know? Current Psychiatry Reports (2020) 22: 18
van Steijn,D., Oerlemans, A., de Ruiter,S., van Aken,M., Buitelaar,J., Rommelse, N. Are parental autism spectrum disorder and/or attention-deficit/ Hyperactivity disorder symptoms related to parenting styles in families with ASD (+ADHD) affected children? Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry (2013) 22:671–681
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