Children with ADHD appear to be more demanding of their parent’s attention and more dependent upon their parents than children without ADHD. Their mothers are usually highly direct with their children but are unlikely to attend to the child’s needs. Mothers of ADHD children act differently towards sons with ADHD, acting more emotionally towards them and engaging in more negative interactions with them, but are far more rewarding of their sons than their daughters with ADHD. Unlike mothers, there is minimal information available on the interactions and relationships of fathers with their ADHD children, but what little information there is suggests that fathers have an easier time interacting with these children than mothers do.

ADHD and Parent-Child Relationships

ADHD people who have ADHD children have been shown to exhibit a lesser number of positive parenting behaviors than their non-ADHD parent counterparts. Mothers with ADHD also have a harder time responding to parenting interventions. Additionally, all mothers of ADHD children have a heightened chance of having the disorder themselves. 

Parents with ADHD

- ADHD and Parent-Child Relationships
- Parents with ADHD

Grinnell College

- Parents and ADHD
- ADHD and Sibling Relationships

ADHD and Familial Relationships

Barkley RA, Anastopoulos AD, Guevremont DC, Fletcher KE: Adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: mother-adolescent interactions, family beliefs and conflicts, and maternal psychopathology. J Abnorm Child Psychol 1992, 20:263–288.

Adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: mother-adolescent interactions, family beliefs and conflicts, and maternal psychopathology

Parents and ADHD

The rate of sibling conflict increases when one sibling has ADHD, with the ADHD sibling’s hyperactivity and impulsivity leading to the increase. The siblings of ADHD children are at a higher risk for emotional and behavioral problems; they tend to be less happy than those without ADHD siblings as well.

ADHD and Sibling Relationships

Studies found that the presence of a child with ADHD results in increased parent stress, reduced parent efficacy, disrupted parent-child relationships, and family functioning. When having an episode of a bipolar disorder or ADHD, it can lead to the family observing the mood swings and activity level changes that might seem abnormal. An individual with a bipolar disorder might do things out of the norm such as spending drastic amounts of money when shopping or having racing thoughts that leads to distractibility. An individual with ADHD might be distracted easily, poor organizational skills, being impulsive, and inattention. Both of these conditions can affect a family member such as sharing a room with a sibling who is well organized, but the individual is disorganized. This would be the cause of racing thoughts, inattention, poor organizational skills and hyperactivity which can make it difficult for the individual to maintain their usual organization.

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