Hey, ADHD Moms: Do You Find Raising Your ADHD Kids As Hard As I Do?

There is lots of evidence that ADHD is genetic. In fact, many parents who had ADHD as children bear a child with the disorder. Imagine the odds that two parents with ADHD face. Chances are, their kids won’t pop out neurotypical.

My husband and I both live with the inattentive form of ADHD. Our oldest son, almost six, shows both hyperactive and inattentive traits. Our middle son, aged four, goes inattentive all the way. We’re still waiting on the baby. We’re not optimistic. I’ve long ago resigned myself to a household full of ADHD.

In some ways, having ADHD makes it easier for me to have ADHD children. I instinctively know that I have to touch them to draw their attention back to me. I’m sympathetic to their intense interests: My middle son would like to know if you’ve heard the Gospel of Spinosaurus? And I understand when those interests shift radically. I get some things. But some parts of raising ADHD kids are just as hard for me as they are for neurotypical parents— maybe more so.

The Noise

Omigosh, the noise. Someone is always throwing something, or jumping, crying, shouting, or asking a question at the top of their lungs. All kids are noisy. Three boys, two with ADHD, sound more like a freight train. This would bother any reasonable human being. However, it bothers ADHD parents even more: We have more trouble tuning it out. Unless I’m “in the zone” writing or reading or doing something crafty, the noise distracts me. I can’t ignore it. I’m constantly yelling “What are you doing?” and “Stop yelling!” The noise makes it difficult to concentrate on household tasks.

The Mess

They pick something up. They carry it five feet. They drop it. They do this 60 times a day with any number of objects large (stuffed penguin) and small (Star Wars figures). When I demand they pick it up, they need a detailed plan: Take the penguin into your room. Now pick up that Star Wars figure. Now this one. It requires so much effort on my part that I might as well do it myself. Which I try to do, but become distracted and start cleaning something else. So nothing gets properly picked up, and we live with a constant scrim of toys over everything.

The Loud Voices

ADHDers usually talk loudly. My kids operate at top volume. I find this as annoying and as frustrating as neurotypical parents do. But then again, I usually talk loudly. Normally, this would make children listen more attentively. But we’re all so used to loud voices—and there’s the ADHD—that no one pays attention. I try to touch my kids and get them to talk more softly. But since I’m a bad example, my words don’t sink in.

The Distractions

My kids are distractible. We home-school them, and so when I’m teaching my oldest child reading, I have to bring his attention back between almost every word. When his younger brothers are playing in the same room, he wants to look at them, not his book. Then he wants to stop and tell me a story barely related to the text. This is all supremely frustrating. It doesn’t help that I’m simultaneously distracted by the lure of my phone, his brothers playing, and whatever he wants to tell me. The combination makes it hard to get things done. We have to keep a tight, regular schedule and stick to a strict plan. These help cut through the distractions—on both ends.

The Obsessions

Currently, my oldest son is obsessed with aliens and dragons and Star Wars. All teaching material filtered through these things tends to stick. My middle son is obsessed, now and eternally, with the dinosaur Spinosaurus. For him, one Spinosaurus appearance makes a book worth reading. I get their intense interests, but I struggle to be interested in them. My ADHD says that if I’m not into it, I have a hard time caring about it. And I really don’t care about that Star Wars cartoon or a croc-like dinosaur that lived millions of years ago. I know a lot about them, anyway. But I can’t get excited about it.

The Lost Stuff

I lose things constantly: my phone, my shoes, my book, my computer. My kids also lose things: their toys, their shoes, their books, their iPads. Sometimes they take my phone and lose it for me. You’d think I’d have patience for them losing things, but I’ve spent a lifetime of rising panic at things disappearing. So when they lose things, the old panic just comes back, and I take it worse than a neurotypical parent would. Plus I have no luck in finding things, because ADHD, which makes everything worse.

You’d think ADHD would live well with ADHD. Mostly, we do. But there are clashes, and those clashes usually come from being too much alike rather than too different. We mostly live happily. But there are times when an ADHD mama and a five-year-old with ADHD don’t get along so well. Like reading time. But in the end, I understand more than anyone what my kids need—touches, time, advocacy—so it works out better in the end.