ADHD adults tend to continue to need supervision well into their adult lives. Impulsiveness can cause an ADHD adult to suddenly leave a classroom or a board room where their presence is required because they saw a pretty bird out the window that they’d like to get a closer look at.
Attention Deficit
The attention deficit can cause the ADHD adult to miss appointments vital to his career because he can’t pay attention during the initial interview. It can cause him to mis-hear dates or times or even names of the person he is to contact.
Failure
Failure in school is not the end of the problems for an ADHD adult. Lost jobs and failed relationships are common for an ADHD adult as his employer, co-workers, and family members can only tolerate the frustrating antics of the ADHD adult for so long before they decide to move on with their own lives.
ADHD adults commonly interrupt important conversations or walk away before getting all the needed information.
Children
The ADHD children of ADHD adults are often harder to handle than the typical ADHD child due to the lack of a stable role model. They understand their idiosyncrasies and watch as their parent “gets away” with the same behaviors. This is confusing to the child but he learns that if he can make it to adulthood he, too, can “get away” with his differences.
Without a stable influence in the ADHD child’s life, the child will become even more out of control and others will tolerate less and less from him. Because these same adults must deal with the ADHD parent of the child, they tend to write the child off from any progress so that they no longer have to deal with the adult.
Teachers, leaders, and family friends become frustrated with the child but the anxiety of having to deal with the ADHD adult often leads them to just skip the conversation and move on as best as they can without the parent. This can be detrimental to a child who needs the extra attention.
Real-Life Example
There is a family where both the father and son are extremely ADHD. They both suffer from impusiveness, lack of attention during important meetings, lack of control of interrupting, and they often wander away from the group with no warning. This group uses a buddy system and this father constantly insists that he will be his son’s buddy. In a normal circumstance, that would be fine; however, there are many instances when the group finds the child alone and cannot find the father only to learn later that he “remembered he had to make a phone call” or something else.
Because this adult will not admit that he is like his son, there is no reasoning with him that he, too, needs supervision. This leaves the group in a difficult situation as they must balance the safety and protection of the child against the rights of the father. Conversations with the boy’s mother are unhelpful as she is as frustrated as the group but is unwilling to confront her husband.
Situations like this can lead to difficulties in a group. It is the family’s responsibility to ensure the safety of the child but when they are unwilling or unable to take those essential steps, others must step in and take over. As this group approached the problem, the father and son switched groups. At that point, nothing could be done. The family had already been investigated by child services and they found nothing wrong. At this point, the group just had to let the family go.
ADHD can be a debilitating disorder that must be dealt with for the success of the adult. Children are much more accessible to instruction and are therefore the best candidates for restructuring how their brain works. Giving them a purpose and coping strategies can be essential to his success.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article is for educational purposes only and should not be used for diagnosis or to guide treatment without the opinion of a health professional. Any reader who is concerned about his or her health should contact a doctor for advice.
Daphne Matthews - Author
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