Introduction

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is classified as a neurodevelopmental disorder that consists of lifelong qualities of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity; in the past, ADHD has been most referred to as a disorder of childhood, as the diagnostic criteria have historically been developed with children in mind (Kessler et al., 2006). While symptoms appear to be more prominent and unwieldy during childhood, growing evidence indicates symptoms may persist into adulthood (Kessler et al., 2006). However, ADHD in adulthood has only been recognized as a serious concern within the last few decades (Johnston et al., 2012), especially with the addition of adult criteria added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013).

In the past, ADHD as a diagnosis has been scrutinized and heavily critiqued following an uprise in diagnosis and the prescription of stimulant medication to manage symptoms (Hinshaw, 2018). The globalization of the disorder – following pharmaceutical industries’ heavy marketing for ADHD medication and American and biological psychiatry training programs within the United States – has contributed widely to disorder stigma and the questioning of its validity (Conrad & Bergey, 2017). Despite this, current literature suggests that ADHD as a disorder has context within both behavioral and social components as well as psychological underpinnings, genetic components, and neurotransmission (Hinshaw, 2018). Today, both APA guidelines and current research encourage implementation of rigid steps using DSM-5 criteria in aiding clinical diagnosis to reduce the potential for misdiagnosis and improve diagnostic accuracy (Sibley, 2021). With this, the field remains hopeful to continue research and treatment of ADHD with high standards of empiricism and, in-turn, overcome its controversial history.

Despite barriers to diagnosis, behavioral treatment for adults with ADHD has been observed to improve both parent and child behavior with and without the intervention of medication (Babinski et al., 2014), especially when an intervention is introduced early on. However, research indicates that those individuals diagnosed with ADHD in adulthood may not be given clinical referrals for evaluation and treatment of ADHD until around 32 years old (Vater et al., 2024). This raises the question of treatment availability for diagnosed adults, and whether age of diagnosis even matters if availability of treatment is scarce. From this, it may be inferred that both underdiagnosis and under-treatment of ADHD in adults who parent could be followed by or cooccur with negative parenting behavior as a result of unawareness of the disorder and lack of symptom management. In summary, success has been observed following behavioral intervention for adults with a diagnosis and treatment intervention; as ADHD in adulthood is underdiagnosed and undertreated, downstream impacts on parenting behavior in larger populations of ADHD adults may likely be understudied.

While abundant literature documents relationships among ADHD symptoms, especially those regarding inattention and parenting ability (e.g., a parent’s ability to appropriately read facial cues from their child, or the ability to tolerate setbacks in routine; Johnston et al., 2012; Park et al., 2017), relatively little is known about how adult ADHD impacts parenting behavior. While sparse, the existing literature on ADHD and parenting indicates associations among symptoms of ADHD and both positive and negative aspects of parenting; research has positively correlated hyperactive and impulsive symptoms of ADHD to harsh and distressed parenting responses (Mazursky-Horowitz et al., 2015; Zaidman-Zait & Shilo, 2021), while inattentive symptoms of ADHD have been linked with lax parenting (Zaidman-Zait & Shilo, 2021). In addition, symptoms of ADHD parents have been seen to impact general aspects of parenting – such as warmth, care, control, and overprotection – at varying degrees in varying directions (Johnston et al., 2012; Park et al., 2017). Also, parents who exhibit symptoms of ADHD reported that their symptoms can impact areas of parenting like self-worth and stigmatization regarding the disorder (e.g., not fitting into the stereotypical diagnosis and receiving doubt about the diagnosis as a result and feelings of shame resulting from stigma around the diagnosis; Hansson Hallerod et al., 2015). Additionally, the disorder may highlight deficiencies in parenting ability (such as struggles with timeliness, organization, and routine), interfere with self-identity as a parent resulting from diagnosis, and even intensify concern that a child will inherit the disorder (Solmonson & Stewart, 2013).

Despite emerging literature documenting links among ADHD symptoms and parenting behavior, a gap remains regarding the perspectives of children growing up with a parent with ADHD; more specifically, the missing component involves the potential impact of parental ADHD symptoms and parenting behavior on the child’s perception of the parent-child relationship (Johnston et al., 2012). Although studies have investigated adults with ADHD and their retrospective (childhood) perception of their parents (Montejo et al., 2019), these reports have not focused on the phenomenological experience of youth who were raised by a parent with ADHD. Some researchers have utilized qualitative methods to investigate how younger adults perceive their ADHD parentsFootnote 1 (e.g., Belo-Tomic et al., 2021); however, the depth at which this topic is studied remains rather limited.

ADHD and Parenting

ADHD produces major impairments to daily functioning in both adults and children who are diagnosed with the condition. Additionally, ADHD in childrearing adults can produce adverse effects on parenting behavior, parenting type and style, a parent’s subjective view of parenting success, and possibly even family and relational dynamics. While limited, extant literature has documented these links and their implications for child development. Research has identified relationships between adult ADHD symptoms and several domains of parenting including warmth and control (Park et al., 2017), positive, harsh, and lax parenting (Mazursky-Horowitz et al., 2015), and care and overprotection (Zaidman-Zait & Shilo, 2021).

Symptom Impact on Observable Behavior

Executive functioning, specifically the ability to “organize, prioritize, and integrate cognitive functions” (Kessler et al., 2010, p. 8), may be a key component of ADHD in adulthood; executive function has commonly been used as an “umbrella term for effortful, top-down cognitive processes necessary for the regulation of other cognitive processes, behavior, and emotions, and initiation of goal-directed behavior” (Orm et al., 2023, p. 262). Recognizing executive functioning’s role is paramount in beginning to understand the relationship between adult ADHD and impairments in parenting behavior, as deficits in executive functioning are linked to harsh parenting behavior within the home (Deater-Deckard et al., 2012; Zaidman-Zait et al., 2021). Additionally, harsh parenting behavior has been correlated with an increase in disruptive and problematic child behavior, which may be a result of the self-regulatory nature of executive function tasks and the strengthened link between challenging child behavior and attention and working memory in parents (Deater-Deckard et al., 2012). In addition to executive functioning, parents with ADHD also exhibit deficits in many other areas. Current literature has identified that executive dysfunction in ADHD adults may manifest as emotional dysregulation (i.e., using maladaptive strategies to modulate emotions and direct behavior toward goals; Soler-Gutiérrez et al., 2023). For example, Soler-Gutiérrez and colleagues (2023) found that emotional dysregulation was directly linked to ADHD symptom severity in adults.

High levels of disorganization, home chaos, extreme commotion, and generally ineffective parenting tactics are exceedingly common in households where at least one parent has ADHD (Einziger et al., 2019; Iwinski et al., 2019; Mokrova et al., 2010). It is also entirely possible that receiving a diagnosis of ADHD in adulthood could lead to feelings of inadequacy and a self-fulfilling prophecy wherein overconcern about the diagnosis may contribute to avoidance of difficult tasks, especially for parents (Hansson Hallerod et al., 2015). This is notable because, although some parents and families have benefitted from both ADHD medication management and therapeutic treatment (e.g., behavioral parent training [BPT]; Babinski et al., 2014), treating the symptoms of ADHD in parents may not be enough to fully address all of the dynamics that the disorder brings to the home (Johnston et al., 2012; Park et al., 2017; Solmonson & Stewart, 2013).

Links Between ADHD Symptoms and Parenting Style

Prominent symptoms of ADHD (e.g., impulsivity) are closely related to parenting type like positive, harsh, and lax parenting; specifically, less inhibitory control has been linked to harsh and distressed parenting responses (Lui et al., 2013; Mazursky-Horowitz et al., 2015; Zaidman-Zait et al., 2021). Other symptoms of ADHD like inattention have been connected to ‘lax’ parenting habits (Zaidman-Zait et al., 2021) and increased conflict in the home between ADHD mothers and their children (Grimbos & Wiener, 2016). Additionally, correlations have been identified between the presence of parental ADHD and both authoritarian parenting style and overreactivity (described as authoritarian parenting with “aggressive behaviors and lack of kindness;” Sabagh et al., 2016, p. 255) when compared to parents without ADHD. This overreactivity is often accompanied by lower levels of involvement and difficulty in monitoring child activity (Sabagh et al., 2016).

Parental Experience and Assessment of Parenting Success

Increased impulsivity in parents has also been linked to distorted personal views of parenting success; some parents exhibited overconfidence and overestimation of positive parenting behavior when their symptoms of both hyperactivity and impulsivity were increased (Lui et al., 2013; Mazursky-Horowitz et al., 2015; Zaidman-Zait et al., 2021). Some parents with ADHD reported being more cognizant of their symptomatology and how it might impact the household; many of these parents felt concern and fear that the disorder’s impact on their family members was burdensome and created detrimental impacts on their children and partners (Hansson Hallerod et al., 2015; Solmonson & Stewart, 2013). Mothers expressed frustration with their inability to facilitate routine and timeliness and worried that the heredity of the disorder would lead their children down a similar path as they grow up (Solmonson & Stewart, 2013).

Family Dynamics and Relationships

While some ADHD parents were more likely to report distorted views of their own parenting success, other family members in the home tended to recognize the deficits influenced by the disorder. In one study with individuals who were diagnosed with ADHD in adulthood, 50 participants aged 18 to 47 (M = 31.69, SD = 9.20) reported retrospective memories of rigid, disconnected, and even dysfunctional dynamics between family members (Montejo et al., 2019); young adults also reported that various aspects of their parent’s ADHD such as impulsive spending habits, poor time management, and mood swings were challenging to navigate during childhood (Belo-Tomic et al., 2021). In general, literature has suggested that negative reports may be much more common than positive ones regarding the impact of ADHD within the household.

Despite the reported negative impacts of adult symptomatology on parent-child relationships, there does remain a positive facet to the presentation of ADHD in the home. There is the potential for parents with ADHD to better connect with their children when the children also exhibit symptoms of the disorder; adults who grew up with a parent diagnosed with ADHD remembered feeling more engaged with their ADHD parent, were able to better-relate to each other’s struggles, recalled increased levels of empathy within the parent-child dynamic, and identified better play between parents and children as a result of the child-like behavioral symptoms ADHD can bring out (Belo-Tomic et al., 2021). Mirroring this, a study using a sample of children from Ireland indicated that ADHD children felt or remembered a sense of belonging when they knew they had the same diagnosis as a parent; however, both children and spouses of ADHD adults described the ADHD adults as being “immature” and “unreliable,” which caused stressful and chaotic environments in the home (Carr-Fanning & McGuckin, 2022, p. 6). In sum, while negative reports on ADHD impact appear to be in greater abundance, positive facets do exist for some persons.

In summary, symptoms of ADHD in parents are seen to impact many aspects of parenting at varying degrees (Johnston et al., 2012; Park et al., 2017). The disorder and the challenges it may bring to a family dynamic are multi-faceted. While it is apparent that there are both positive and negative characteristics to this, the lived experiences children have growing up with ADHD present in the home may extend beyond what the current literature has documented thus far. In a review of qualitative literature on adult ADHD, Ginapp and colleagues (2022) identified 35 qualitative studies on the lived experiences of adults with ADHD; of these 35 studies, none mentioned parenting as a feature of adulthood struggles pertaining to ADHD. Additionally, the few qualitative studies that do identify this phenomenon within a similar population are conducted outside of the U.S. This taken together with what we know about the impact adult ADHD can have on relationships, household dynamics, and parenting behavior, it is of paramount importance that the gap in our understanding of the disorder and its lasting impact on children be further investigated.

Method

The current study used the thematic analysis method as described by Braun and Clarke (2006, 2021) with the primary goal of gaining insight on patterns of themes and meanings across individuals. The flexibility and accessibility of thematic analysis proves to be a plausible option for researchers new to qualitative methods. Additionally, the overarching research questions and the goals of this research involved better understanding the bigger picture of ADHD in the home environment through personal recountsFootnote 2.

Participants

The target population for this research project consisted of adults ages 18 to 25 who reported growing up with at least one parent diagnosed with ADHD. The chosen age range was grounded in the theory of emerging adulthood, which has suggested that the age range 18 to 25 is distinct in its qualities from the broader category of younger adulthood (Arnett, 2000, 2007); more specifically, emerging adulthood has been characterized by identity exploration, instability, self-focus, possibility, and “feeling in-between” (Arnett, 2000, p. 69). The age range of 18–25 assumed a relatively recent living arrangement with a parent while it still maintained a close enough period of time to maximize one’s autobiographical recall. In total, there were four inclusion criteria for participation in this study:

  1. 1.

    Participants were of 18 to 25 years;

  2. 2.

    Participants were required to be fluent in speaking and understanding the English language;

  3. 3.

    Participants currently resided within the United States of America;

  4. 4.

    Participants must have grown up with an ADHD parent.

In total, 16 participants aged 18 to 25 (M = 23.13, SD = 2.03) completed semi-structured interviews. 63% of participants reported their race as White and 31% reported as Black or African American. One participant reported an ethnicity as ‘Other’ and text-identified themselves as Jewish. Of all participants, 68% identified themselves as female, 12% as male, and 19% as non-binary. Participants indicated states of residence falling within 9 U.S. statesFootnote 3. Reported highest levels of education were evenly split between having some college (n = 8) or having obtained a bachelor’s degree (n = 8). Most participants reported that their father had ADHD (n = 7), followed by mother (n = 6), both mother and father (n = 2), and stepmother (n = 1). On average, participants first learned their parents had ADHD around the age of 12 (M = 12.06, SD = 6.07) and lived with their ADHD parents for roughly 17 years (M = 17.19, SD = 4.02). Most participants (n = 11) indicated that their parent, at some point, had been medicated for ADHD; the remainder of the participants indicated that, to the best of their knowledge, their parents had not been medicated (n = 4) or they were unsure of their parents’ medication status (n = 1). Pseudonyms, generated from a random name generator, were given to each participant which aligned with their identified gender and preferred pronouns.

Procedure

All processes and protocols were submitted to and approved by the Institutional Review Board at the authors’ institution for review preceding any participant contact. Potential participants were recruited primarily via Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD), a nation-wide ADHD non-profit organization providing information, support, and networking for individuals who experience ADHD in some domain of their life. Individuals were also recruited via snowball sampling and flyers posted on social media platforms. Individuals who met inclusion criteria indicated interest in the study by emailing the first author as designated on the recruitment flier; if the potential participant indicated they did not have any questions regarding the study or protocols and identified that they met the inclusion criteria listed, a virtual interview was scheduled.

Prior to the interview, participants were sent an email which included a link to a Qualtrics survey, Zoom link information for the interview, and a reminder of the interview time. Participants were presented with an informed consent document at the beginning of the Qualtrics survey, which they must have read and signed to acknowledge they provided consent for the protocols before moving forward with the questionnaire’s demographic questions.

Prior to the beginning of the interview, the first author ensured that the Qualtrics survey was completed in its entirety, and then, upon meeting on Zoom but prior to the onset of the interview, key points of the informed consent document were repeated to ensure participants did not have any remaining questions. Participants were also reminded that they could choose to discontinue the interview at any time for any reason without penalty. No participants in this study chose to discontinue before the conclusion of the interview.

Participants then completed a video- and audio-recorded semi-structured interview about their experience growing up with an ADHD parent. Interviews lasted between 40 and 90 min (M = 58.70, SD = 14.70), and participants were compensated following the conclusion of the interview. A semi-structured interview guide was developed for the purpose of this study, including questions such as “In what ways was your parent’s ADHD present in the home?”; “What was your experience during the peaks and valleys of your parent’s ADHD?”; “How did home life change over time?”; and “What advice would you give to a child growing up with an ADHD parent now?” Although the interview guide primarily focused on questions regarding the influence of parental ADHD on participants as they grew up, the structure of the interview allowed for discussion of how past events may have impacted the present. Audio recordings were transcribed verbatim shortly after the conclusion of the interview and followed general notation guidelines adapted from Braun and Clarke (2013, 2021) to maintain readability and researcher triangulation abilities. Data were de-identified simultaneously with transcription to provide participants with randomized pseudonyms and replacements for identifying information; this process again followed the guidelines set by Braun and Clarke (2013, 2021). Once all audio data were transcribed and de-identified, transcriptions were checked by the second author, who oversaw the method, procedure, and analysis.

Data Availability

The interview data supporting the findings of this study are protected and unavailable due to ethical obligations and data privacy laws.

Data Analysis

This study followed thematic analysis as described by Braun and Clarke (2006, 2021) with the primary goal of gaining insight on patterns of themes and meanings across individuals. As Braun and Clarke have demonstrated in their vast corpus of qualitative research (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Braun & Wilkinson, 2003; Farvid et al., 2017), thematic analysis is an adequate approach to aid in the identification of patterns across individuals’ lived experiences surrounding a particular topic. Data immersion occurred by reading through all transcriptions while simultaneously listening to the audio recordings to become initially familiar with the data. From there, a second readthrough occurred for each transcription, and the first author began to take memos and notes throughout to maintain a solid grasp on initial thoughts and “noticings” (Braun & Clarke, 2012, p. 204). These memos included a record of noticings, notes, ideas, and memory aids to later help with the analytic process and were written in a separate document, date-stamped, and organized according to each transcription. Initial coding took place during a second readthrough of the transcripts, where each transcript was coded in entirety and codes were added to and defined in the initial codebook. After the initial coding process, codes were compared across passages and revised appropriately, and then revisited once more.

Thematic Map Development

Aligned with Braun and Clarke (2006, 2013, 2021), an initial thematic map was created with major patterns identified across the data; as the analytic process continued, this map was revised three additional times, following the iterative process of the constant comparative method, resulting in a fourth, and final, thematic map. The map revision process included revisiting transcripts to identify relevant pieces of data, adequately articulate patterns, revise or remove themes with minimal representation in the data, and restructure the connections between themes and subthemes.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Final thematic map

Full size image

Figure 1 Final thematic map depicting themes and subthemes. White = overarching themes, yellow = secondary subthemes, green = tertiary subthemes. Connecting lines represent relationships between themes and subthemes as well as between secondary and tertiary subthemes.

The first conceptualization of the map included four overarching themes and seventeen subthemes. This initial map differed from the first revision in the integration of an overarching theme Looking Up into the subtheme Taking Back Control and Moving On; this was done to represent the notion that while the reported positive aspects were scarce, those that did report on positivity felt it was crucial to their story. Additionally, a major theme, Interpreting Parent’s Capabilities, was reoriented to Navigating Broken Expectations to place emphasis on the aspect of parental responsibility and assumptions children have about them. One subtheme and two connections between themes were eliminated due to few representations within the dataset, and another subtheme was relocated. Several themes and subthemes were renamed for clarity. Between the second and third conceptualizations of the map, one subtheme was identified as being shared between two main themes, and several subthemes were renamed for clarity. Finally, the differences between the third and fourth conceptualizations of the map lie primarily in the reorientation of the subtheme Taking Back Control and Moving On from Existential Impact to Navigating Broken Expectations due to a closer alignment of supporting data with the latter. The final thematic map articulates a narrative about the experiences children have with their parents’ ADHD and the impact those experiences have on their perceptions of the world around them as they age.

Results

Three overarching themes were identified within the data: (1) Burden of Having an ADHD Parent, (2) Existential Impact, and (3) Navigating Broken Expectations. Twelve subthemes, alone or as connected to other themes, comprised the three dominant themes above.

Burden of Having an ADHD Parent

In living in the same household as a parent with ADHD, emerging adults frequently felt either a self- or externally-imposed obligation to be accountable for their parents’ ADHD as well as their parents’ and family units’ ADHD-impacted areas of life. For many individuals, these responsibilities seemed to be an inherent part of the role children of ADHD parents must develop. When asked about what advice she would give to a young child who just found out about their parent’s ADHD, Rory said:

If the child is able and willing, see how they can help around the house or help their parent come up with, like, lists or routines of ways to stay focused and organized in their lives so that it doesn’t get too chaotic for the parent. Because sometimes when the parent’s too chaotic, depending on the parent, they can take it out on the child.

Rory’s identification of an essential role that the child of an ADHD parent must fill has implications that negative outcomes resulting from symptoms would inherently be the child’s fault for failure to help their parent more; all 16 participants identified areas in which they felt accountable in some way for their parents’ diagnosis or the way their parents managed symptoms.

Guilt

Oftentimes a repercussion of an assigned responsibility on behalf of these children was explicit feelings of liability or guilt when their parents were unable to properly manage their ADHD symptoms. In fact, many individuals identified that it was their responsibility to change their own behavior to better align with their parents’ symptoms. Charlotte detailed that “it was very hard to make a mistake or screw up in any way and feel like it was okay. Because if it in any way inconvenienced [her father], you could feel very guilty.” In some domains, children felt that it was not only their responsibility to change their behavior accordingly to their parent’s ADHD symptoms, but it was also important to always maintain awareness of their parent’s symptoms; a ‘slip up’ on their part could result in a bigger issue that was inherently the child’s fault. Grace, whose mother and father both had ADHD, discussed an instance in which she “made the mistake” of leaving graduation gift money in her room while her mother was home. When asked about fault in the situation, she cited repeated childhood occurrences of guilt in similar situations:

That was kind of um, a repeated thing, like, throughout childhood. It was like, whenever we got a birthday card, we could expect to not, like, have that money in a couple days, ‘cause it was mom taking it out and pocketing it. Or dad needing it for gas or something and then saying that he would pay us back and then forgetting about it. Um, even to this day… my brother and sister are all kind of like, “Come on, you know better, like we’ve learned.” We kinda- yeah. We give each other shit for it to the point where it’s like, it’s one of our faults if one of those things happens.

Grace and other participants shared these feelings of liability when it came to negative outcomes resulting from parental ADHD; in fact, the feelings of guilt were so frequent for many individuals that it became a matter of anticipation for some negative result. For some, the sheer frequency of times children felt anticipatory for negative outcomes or feelings of guilt turned into a surrender of sorts: feeling as if there is no possibility that the outcomes will be any different.

Resignation

In conversations regarding the responsibilities that children were assigned, many individuals cited this resignation of sorts: becoming okay with the possibility that their responsibilities may never be alleviated. The subtheme of Resignation was created to conceptualize participants’ coming to terms with the potential that their responsibilities are permanent.

Accepting the Struggles as a Part of Life

Participants identified that, while their parents’ ADHD symptoms were sometimes the cause of struggles in their lives, it was important for participants to remind themselves that there was not much to be done about them. Specifically, the responsibilities the children held regarding their parents’ symptoms, as well as the symptoms themselves, were just things that they had to continue to live with. Brooke talked about instances in which their father’s emotional dysregulation caused alarm and uncomfortability in the home; in an effort to help alleviate their father’s stress, Brooke identified that they could give him more physical and emotional space, which typically helped to calm the home. However, Brooke noted that, over time, they became more aware of how their father’s ADHD presented and said, “I feel like the little things, like, my dad getting angry over things was just not really relevant anymore because I understood that- that he’s gonna act differently and that’s okay.” Don echoed Brooke’s narrative, stating that he “didn’t have a choice” but to deal with his father’s symptoms, and that the family “had to admit the fact that it’s- it’s reality that there’s nothing that can be done.” In a similar light, resignation oftentimes was followed by participants understanding that their parents’ behavior was a direct result of their diagnosis rather than an intentional or deliberate effort.

The connection to Burden of Having an ADHD Parent rested in that, because of a newfound understanding of this disorder’s perceived permanence, their responsibilities and obligations were just things that came with the territory of having ADHD present in the household. More specifically, it seemed that the persons in this study felt a duty to come to terms with their responsibilities (i.e., Resignation), an obligation to assign blame to an external source (i.e., “It’s Not Their Fault”), and a responsibility to come to terms with the permanence of the struggles that result from the disorder (i.e., Accepting the Struggles as a Part of Life). Basically, the aspects of Resignation (and the two tertiary subcategories) were just smaller pieces, individual aspects, of the burden these participants experienced as they were raised in their homes.

‘It’s Not Their Fault’

Alyssa identified a story about how her mother had forgotten her birthday; she detailed that it was her and her siblings’ responsibility to remind their mother of important dates such as birthdays: “I felt bad ‘cause I knew it wasn’t her fault, it wasn’t her doing. She wasn’t doing all this intentionally.” Six participants acknowledged the seriousness of ADHD and that the disorder itself was inherently responsible for the difficulties at home rather than their parents’ conscious actions. Perhaps this was driven by the desire to balance dissonance to maintain a positive impression of their parents. Although participants identified ways in which they could change their behavior to better accommodate parents’ struggles, it was common for informants to acknowledge that they also needed to change their mindset. For many of the participants, it was implied that negative feelings they had toward their parents’ behavior were unfair and must be modified. Alex said that he “let go of the anger and of the disappointment” regarding his father forgetting about his and his mother’s birthdays because he knew his father “did not choose” to have ADHD.

Informants discussing this topic frequently seemed to hold an attitude of needing to place the blame somewhere. In the interpretation of the first author, it felt as if leaving the situation blameless would be uncomfortable for individuals. Or, perhaps instead, participants felt as if they needed to assign blame to something external before blame could be assigned to themselves (an inherent part of Burden of Having an ADHD Parent) such as in Grace’s example involving graduation money.

Patience Is a Virtue

In addition to other responsibilities bestowed upon these children, informants indicated that patience was the most important and valuable lesson to be learned as a child of an ADHD parent. When asked about what she interpreted to be the most positive thing about her mother’s ADHD, Rory stated: “It helps me to be an even more patient person because that’s someone I care about… And I wanna help her so it teaches me more and more patience every day, um, just on a day-to-day basis being around her.” The notion of learning patience was not confined to just the parent-child relationship; individuals detailed that, as a result of their experience with their parents’ ADHD, they possessed the ability to be patient with other persons in their lives, including themselves, whether ADHD was involved.

The overarching theme of Burden of Having an ADHD Parent was initially created from the recurring narratives of informants about their responsibilities in relation to ADHD. In fact, the primary code that informed this theme was originally called Responsibility as Child, a researcher-derived code that consisted of varying duties informants talked about during the course of their interviews; these included things as explicit as ensuring their mother took her ADHD medication on time to gray areas such as understanding when a ‘good’ time to tell their dad a story was versus when he was too dysregulated to listen. While no participant explicitly labeled their experiences in this domain as “responsibilities,” their anecdotes often came with feelings of obligation and negativity, hence the terminology burden.

Existential Impact

Eliott identified that because they also have ADHD, they were fearful that their life would turn out similar to their father’s:

I think that I had a lot of fear of shame in myself because of his symptoms and because I knew from a fairly young age, like, I never wanted to make anybody feel like that. And so any time I would have, like, an uncontrollable emotion, which was most often anger, um, it would be compounded by shame and fear of, like, this is confirmation that I’m going to turn into somebody who hurts people.

Charlotte mirrored Eliott’s concern for the future in saying that she was hesitant to get married because her partner has ADHD; she explained that she was worried her marriage would turn out similar to her parents’ marriage had, and Charlotte reported that the unpredictability of her home growing up “scare[d] [her] a little bit about [her] future with [her] husband.” Charlotte also detailed that her father’s lack of effort regarding his relationships with family members impacted her “expectations for people, for friends, for spouses,” and other relationships in general. These specific examples detail interpersonal impacts that, according to participants, stuck around even if they no longer lived with their ADHD parents. While it is true that interpersonal relationships appeared to be a large area of impact for these individuals, it most certainly is not the only dimension.

Depreciating Self-Worth

Some participants cited a depreciation of self-worth being a direct result of their parents’ symptoms, particularly those relating to inattention and forgetfulness. In answering questions about what it was like to cope with their mother’s ADHD symptoms, Jacie identified that many of the issues they have presently regarding self-worth “[came] from feeling like [they’re] not worth remembering or prioritizing because of [their] mother.” More specifically, Jacie tells a story about how their mother forgot them in a gas station bathroom during a childhood family road trip; this event became a core part of Jacie’s conceptualization of self and their importance in the world, stating that “it felt like more of a statement about [their] worth than anything.” As a way to cope with this recent understanding of the importance of their existence in the world, Jacie remembered withdrawing from those around them, including from siblings and other family members: “Obviously it [was] not important for me to be an active participant in a car ride if mom just forgot me at a gas station.” Jacie’s depiction of their mother’s forgetfulness was just one instance of not only an aspect of endangerment growing up, but also the idea that these experiences early in life can shape who children are and how they see themselves.

Discovering Dissimilar Family Dynamics

Similar to notions in Depreciating Self-Worth, some individuals explicitly discussed instances in which their perception of self and their experience of the world was further shaped upon discovering that other families, especially those of their peers’, had contrasting and, what they regarded as, more positive, dynamics. For instance, Brooke discussed ways in which their friends’ houses were different from their own as they grew up; the surreal experience of seeing their friends’ families eat dinner together at a table caused Brooke to question whether their own family’s time spent together was considered “weird.” They asked themselves: “Why is my family so loud and scary?” While a few positive notions were present regarding this experience (such as Brooke, who detailed learning “there’s no one way to have a family” and that it was okay that families looked different), many of the comparisons to families of their peers were rooted in bleak attitudes about the children’s own family interactions. Just over half of the informants in this study endorsed the notion of comparing their own family interactions to the interactions of peers’ families.

The subtheme of Discovering Dissimilar Family Dynamics was developed regarding an interpersonal notion, where participants implicitly identified that realizing other families behaved in ways that were different, and oftentimes more desirable, shaped the way they viewed family relationships in general. Regarding interpretation, it felt as if the discovery of contrasting family dynamics was one aspect in which the informants were effectively changed as people; it seemed that their perceptions of what a family should look like, which was (up until that point) only comprised of their own family dynamic, was effectively shattered and then reconfigured according to that of their peers.

Shame and Embarrassment

Many of the bleak attitudes regarding children’s own families have notions of shame and embarrassment for the way their families functioned. Grace talked specifically about feeling extremely embarrassed when an “outside person” (i.e., Grace’s friends or relatives or her parents’ friends or acquaintances) came into her house growing up; she identified that her house was consistently “gross” because laundry and dishes were never done. Grace acknowledged frequently feeling conflicted as a child regarding her friends’ perception of her home; her house was often loved by her friends because it always had “the shitty sugar food,” but this was not comforting to her as she was frequently aware of her friends’ negative perceptions and commentary when she would give them dirty towels or unclean clothes to borrow during a sleepover. These informants felt and reported on shame and embarrassment not only in comparing their homes to those of their peers, but also in their peers’ perceptions of their home. Often, when others witnessed the cadence of the home and the family dynamics, these individuals felt discomfort and notions of humiliation.

The second major theme identified in the data, Existential Impact, was defined in a way that tried to represent the shaping of these informants’ lived existence resulting from their parent/homelife experiences. Although it was rarely mentioned explicitly, the persons in this study often implied that the experiences they had growing up with their parents’ ADHD permanently altered how they saw themselves as individuals. Although some identified the desire to re-find who they used to be, the general sentiment expressed was something that aligned with the molding of reality for this group of people. While it should be acknowledged that humans’ realities are shaped every day by a seemingly infinite variety of experiences, what makes this group of people different is their awareness that they are changed directly as a result of their parents’ disorder. The core of this theme has been represented by the informants’ conceptualization of their importance in the world and the interpersonal interactions and relationships they pursued because of the impact.

Navigating Broken Expectations

The third, and final, major aspect of children’s experience of their ADHD parents involved the assumptions and ideologies that these emerging adults had about the responsibilities a parent should be able to fulfill and how a parent should behave. As a result of ADHD symptomatology, these assumptions were oftentimes reported as violated, broken, or shattered. One aspect of parental responsibilities that many children appeared to share was the assumption that a parent would not place their child in danger. This assumption was broken for Gabrielle when her mother forgot to pick her up from school when she was a young child. She recalled with sadness and a sense of disbelief trying to seek an apology from her mother for putting her into “one of the scariest experiences in [her] life,” but failed to get what she was searching for because her mother identified that the ADHD was at fault. Gabrielle’s expectations that her mother would (1) keep her safe, and (2) would apologize in the instances she failed to do so, were both shattered during a singular experience. Jacie explained a similar situation in which they and their siblings were forgotten by their mother while playing outside in the snow. They were only found outside “huddled up in the shed” and fearing they would “freeze to death overnight” after it had gotten dark outside and their father came home questioning where the children had gone. While keeping their children out of danger was one aspect of the expectations individuals had about parental responsibility, this concept was multifaceted and included other areas such as showing up to school performances and presentations, maintaining bill payments and household cleanliness, providing emotional support, modeling healthy hygiene habits, upholding financial responsibilities, and following through on plans and promises.

To provide further explanation of this dimension of parental responsibility, taking responsibility for the actual ADHD diagnosis itself was an area where informants felt parents should be able to uphold. Participants talked about how it became frustrating when their parents brought an attitude of denial to the dynamic. These participants insinuated that it was unfair of their parents to not take responsibility for their actions that resulted from symptoms of the disorder, and many expressed disappointment in the attitude of their parents. Kristin mentioned that her father’s “inability to accept [his diagnosis] … [drove her] insane” as he felt there was nothing wrong with him, and this caused further issues in his ability to uphold other parental duties. This notion of denial (in which informants’ parents were denying their own diagnosis for varying reasons such as lack of proof or not feeling ill) was an experience shared by seven informants.

It became clear that informants were speaking again and again about disappointment in their parents’ inability to fulfill certain responsibilities. It was less about the ability of their parents and more about the responsibilities and how informants made meaning from them; more specifically, it was the expectation that certain areas should be within a parent’s domain, perhaps a result of socialization and the inherent assumptions individuals have about parenting through media and other examples provided to them. From there, participants discussed repeated inadequacy on the part of their parents that effectively shattered the expectations they had for their parents. This navigation consisted of areas in which informants used to make sense of their broken expectations.

Discovering Dissimilar Family Dynamics

Similar to that of Existential Impact and its relationship to Discovering Dissimilar Family Dynamics, participants’ expectations of parental responsibility were highlighted during a comparison to those of peer families. The realization that the families of others, particularly peers, were able to fulfill the role-related expectations was what brought shame and embarrassment to their own families.

Shame and Embarrassment

Regarding perception of parental responsibilities, Grace talked about how she would frequently identify ways in which her family was different from her peers. She pinpointed feeling ashamed of her situation growing up:

I think there are a lot of parts of me that are like, “This is how families should be… like, we should talk more than once every two months.” Right? ‘Cause, like, that’s what everybody else does with their families… I think there was just a lot of ‘should’ves’ growing up. Like, “I should have a family who is able to, like, help me with homework,” or, “I should not have to, like, tell mom and dad that bills are due.”

This identification of “should’ves” from Grace was reflected in a narrative from Jacie regarding things their friends received growing up that their family was unable to as a direct result of their mother’s ADHD:

A lot of it was kind of shame because it was things that we were definitely capable of doing but we had her- you know we can’t do that because of mom. It was like, “Well that’s obnoxious that it’s mom’s fault that we can’t have allowance ‘cause she couldn’t keep up with a chore chart. And we don’t have people over ‘cause mom can’t keep the house clean…” It was frustrating and it was embarrassing? And it’s like, “Yeah we can’t do that ‘cause my mom’s a fucking mess.”

In Jacie recounting the things peers were able to do as children that they weren’t, they expressed feelings of disappointment when they would compare the way they grew up to that of their friends. More specifically, Jacie felt immense frustration for their mother’s disorder, so much so that it turned into resentment toward their mother as a person.

Blaming the Parent, Not the Disorder

Jacie’s resentment was common for nine other individuals, especially regarding those who felt their parents were utilizing the ADHD diagnosis as an excuse for their failure to fulfill parental responsibilities. Charlotte mentioned that as time went on, she “[became] more annoyed because [she] realized that maybe [her father] allowed his ADHD to be an excuse at times.” She detailed that her father, not his ADHD, was at fault for making poor financial decisions that put the family at risk, and that he “still [had] a brain and… an ability to choose between right and wrong.”

In referencing Blaming the Parent, not the Disorder, this category may seem contrasting to ‘It’s not their Fault’ in which the disorder was to blame. However, it appeared that for many informants, these contrasting areas of blame were not actually contrasting, they were shifting. The interconnectedness of blame seemed to be a chronological, temporal experience for these informants. This means that during their narrative, many of them spoke of blaming the disorder at the beginning, and once they came to the realization that the expectations they had for their parents were broken time and time again, they were unable to place the blame anywhere else but onto their parents themselves. The differing notions of blame (i.e., blaming parents and blaming the disorder) were not co-occurring for any informants; in fact, all informants who discussed both aspects of blame discussed them separately from each other in a fashion that made the shift visibly apparent.

Missing Out

One aspect of broken expectations that many individuals seemed to share was feelings of loss or a sense of missing out on something. Don identified feeling like he missed out on important interactions and conversations with his peers when they would talk about their families; he recalled that his father “was not normal” and that when “other kids maybe in school would be talking about [their] dad and things he does,” he was unable to participate because he “didn’t have anything to be proud of” about his father. While Don’s recount involved a general scope of his father’s ADHD and missing out on a sense of normalcy, others detailed more specific circumstances in which they missed out due to their parents’ failure to uphold responsibilities. Stacy, whose mother had ADHD, talked about finding other places to receive the things she missed out on from her mother. Specifically, a family she babysat for provided her with support, understanding, and guidance she felt should have come from her own mother. Stacy and Don both detailed a sense of loss and what it was like to manage those feelings, particularly regarding the things they identified as ought to have come directly from their parents.

Taking Back Control and Moving On

An unexpected but positive aspect of children experiencing broken expectations from their ADHD parents is these children perceiving the ability to take back control and move onward from their experiences. Up until a certain point in their lives, many of these children seemed to experience their parents’ ADHD as an event or set of circumstances that happened to them; this was perpetuated by the self- and externally-assigned responsibilities placed on these individuals as children of ADHD parents in combination with the continued expectation that their parents would eventually fulfill their parental duties. However, at a certain point in their lives, these children appeared to understand that they, as adults, could write their own stories and move on from their past, and that their experiences could shape them without shackling them. For many individuals, creating physical distance from their ADHD parents was one way they managed to facilitate control in their relationships.

All of these individuals cited that physical distance, whether it be moving out of the house, out of the state, or even out of the country, had greatly improved the relationships they had with their ADHD parents. Gabrielle laughed while she said, “I do talk with [my mom] a lot more now that, like, I no longer live in the U.S., which is interesting because when I was right there next to her we hardly ever spoke.” For some, this newfound understanding of control and the desire to move onward developed as a sort of realization or epiphany. Regarding their ability to move forward from their experience growing up with an ADHD mother, Jacie said,

Changing my expectations of her has really helped my relationship with her, where if I treat her as an older friend who has good advice and strange skill sets, we get along a lot better than when I’m expecting her to be my mom.

It was clear that many of the individuals in this study felt the need, or perhaps the desire, for a resolution of sorts.

Epiphany

These epiphanies frequently seemed to follow some separation of time after an intense event or experience during childhood. In fact, many individuals talked about how events seemed fun or exciting as a child, but saddening, shocking, or even horrifying as adults. Jacie described an event in which they were at an amusement park and their mom had allowed them to go with a stranger and his child to ride a rollercoaster; Jacie mentioned that although it was fun and exciting as a child, they later realized they “could’ve gotten kidnapped” and blamed their mother’s ADHD for her “careless” behavior.

Just under half of the individuals in this study had statements like Jacie’s in which they had no idea an experience with their parents’ ADHD was scary, harmful, or even nonnormative until adulthood. These individuals also shared the notion that upon realization, it was within their control to do something about it rather than remain passive in their own experiences. Grace talked about seeking therapy to process the traumatic events she experienced with both her mother’s and father’s ADHD. Eliott made the decision to hate their father rather than continue to hope he would improve. Gabrielle talked about a time where she ended up “cutting her [mother] off” until she showed continuous effort to make improvements and take responsibility for her diagnosis. Participants took the opportunity to move onward to reflect on their experiences with their ADHD parents and identify that not everything was inherently negative.

The temporal experience of blame was reflected in this theme, where the tertiary subtheme of Epiphany represented some moment in their adult life when an informant realized something ADHD-related in their childhood was impactful. Instead, these moments were laced with inspiration on how to move onward from their experiences. While they did acknowledge the impact their experiences had, the epiphanies themselves did not seem to shape who they were; rather, they were shaping who they could become, the possibilities that have yet to happen, and the areas they feel they could pursue to make up for what they failed to get from their parents.

Reflecting on the Positives

Fifteen – all but one – informants identified in some way that learning more about ADHD as a disorder helped their relationships with their parents. Specifically, knowledge about the disorder and its presentation helped to foster empathy and understanding of their parents and the resulting behavior. Alyssa mentioned that her already knowing a bit about ADHD helped her relationship with her mother. Gabrielle mentioned a similar experience about wishing she knew more about the disorder growing up:

I think it would’ve been better… if growing up, I was given an adequate, explanation as to, like, why my mom does the things she does… I think it would’ve ultimately helped me to be more empathetic and understanding… when she like, made a mistake.

Gabrielle’s identification of wishing she knew more was followed by the constructive latter half of this experience: allowing the positives to just be positives. This means that while much of these children’s experiences were inherently filled with negativity, fear, and disappointment, an inherent part of taking back control and moving onward was to recognize the favorable aspects of their experiences as pure. This is not to minimize or distract from the difficulties that arose from their situations; as Charlotte put it: “[It] still doesn’t change that it was hard and it sucked.” Instead, participants found strategies to balance their past experiences in ways that were uplifting, maintained boundaries they set for themselves, and continued to give them hope for the future.

Individuals were able to adequately reflect on the positive aspects of their parents’ ADHD and their relationships with them without feeling disingenuous about the hardships they endured through the mechanisms of realization and epiphany. Individuals reflecting on the positives wanted to acknowledge that not everything they experienced with their parents’ ADHD was inherently negative, but that it was still important to them to recognize the ways in which their expectations were not met and how this impacted the way they view their experiences.

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to gain a fuller understanding of the perceived impact parental ADHD had on emerging adults that grew up in a home where one or more of their parents had the disorder. Analyses of 16 interviews with emerging adults who grew up with an ADHD parent were conducted. Utilizing an established and well-respected version of thematic analysis, three overarching themes were identified. These themes outline the experiences these individuals reported as they were growing up with an ADHD parent, as well as how the perceived lasting impact these experiences had on the children shaped who they are and how they experienced the world around them: Burden of having an ADHD Parent, Existential Impact, and Navigating Broken Expectations.

All participants shared a common experience of feeling responsible for their parents’ ADHD and the outcomes resulting from symptoms. This finding was surprising, as neither of the two identified qualitative studies of parental ADHD’s impact on children in the home identified this as an aspect of the home dynamic (Belo-Tomic et al., 2021; Carr-Fanning & McGuckin, 2022). To elaborate on this major theme, participants identified that aiding their parents with symptoms and areas of difficulty was a role that children must fill. Occasionally, this role caused fear in individuals over whether the duties and obligations they held would last their lifetime. Frequently, though, participants identified feelings of guilt when their parents were unable to properly manage their symptoms or the children themselves failed to aid their parents. These feelings of guilt and liability were oftentimes so frequent for the children that they ended up representing a sense of resignation as they accepted the struggles as being a part of life.

It was important for informants to acknowledge that a part of their obligations, as adult children and interdependent members of a family, was to help their parents anyway, despite its potential inconvenience or undesirable nature. Prior literature has shown that, sometimes, treatment (including medication management and behavioral therapy) may not be enough to alleviate the chaos parental ADHD bring into the home (Johnston et al., 2012; Park et al., 2017; Solmonson & Stewart, 2013), and it appeared that informants seemed to come to terms with this. This often led to the notion that informants’ parents were not at fault; participants identified that they were content with helping their parents whenever their parents needed as the informants knew the struggles were a result of the diagnosis, not their parents’ intentional behavior. In line with this, participants recognized that learning patience was the most important and vital lesson a child of an ADHD parent could learn. Similar to the lessons learned by young adults with ADHD parents in Belo-Tomic and colleagues’ (2021) qualitative study, the participants in this study were able to identify that learning patience benefitted them in more areas of life besides their relationships with their parents. Many informants declared that patience for other human beings in general was a positive skill to have, as people make mistakes and deserve patience and kindness.

The second major theme identified within the data involved the lasting existential impact the experiences with their ADHD parents had on the participants. Some individuals cited that repeated experiences of their parents’ emotional dysregulation conditioned them to expect similar interactions from others around them; this experience was typically followed by the difficult journey of identifying that not everyone in life would react the same way as their parents did. The emotional dysregulation identified by the individuals in this study may closely align with correlations between parental ADHD and both authoritarian parenting style and overreactivity identified in quantitatively based studies using statistical correlational analyses (Sabagh et al., 2016). In addition to the interpersonal impact on these children, several individuals discussed a depreciation of self-worth as a direct result of their parents’ forgetfulness or inattention. Informants reported feeling they were not worth remembering, and that issues regarding self-esteem followed them into adulthood because of it. This area appeared to be the most visible, concrete representation of how informants were negatively impacted in the long term.

Another subtheme of Existential Impact involved the participants identifying differing family dynamics in that of their peers. Many participants recalled noticing as children that their houses were oriented differently than those of their peers; oftentimes memories of the household were louder, more chaotic, dirtier, and, for some, scarier. This aligns with prior literature stating that higher levels of chaos, commotion, and disorganization are typically present in homes where at least one parent has ADHD (Einziger et al., 2019; Iwinski et al., 2019; Mokrova et al., 2010). Additionally, emotional dysregulation in those with ADHD may present as yelling, disinhibition, or negative affect, (Soler-Gutiérrez et al., 2023) which may explain the reports of elevated noise, chaos, mess, and possibly fear (as interpreted by the participants). Feelings of shame and embarrassment were often elicited for these children after noticing the contrast between their own homes and the homes of others. Although not identical, other studies identified negative feelings associated with parental ADHD and how their symptoms impacted the home environment (Belo-Tomic et al., 2021; Carr-Fanning & McGuckin, 2022).

The final overarching theme identified within the data involved the navigation of broken expectations. For many of the individuals in this study, there seemed to be an unspoken set of responsibilities that a parent should be able to fulfill, including (but not limited to) keeping their children safe, maintaining household cleanliness, and providing emotional support to the children. This is generally consistent with literature from the past decade on social expectations for parenting responsibilities, which has suggested that parents feel responsible for keeping their children away from harm, providing age-appropriate activities for their children, and making way for emotional support and guidance (Nomaguchi & Milkie, 2020). When symptoms of ADHD prevented parents from fulfilling these duties, the informants needed to learn to cope with feelings of disappointment, betrayal, and even loss. Similar to Existential Impact, participants recalled that identifying that their peers’ families were different brought feelings of shame and embarrassment, but this time regarding items they felt they should have been provided from their own parents. The notion that ADHD parents may be unreliable in following through with parental responsibilities has been reflected in extant literature, which says that both children and spouses of ADHD parents describe parents with ADHD as being both “immature” and “unreliable” (Carr-Fanning & McGuckin, 2022, p. 6). It is possible that lax parenting styles, which are linked to inattentive symptoms of ADHD (Zaidman-Zait et al., 2021) contribute to the sense of carelessness that the individuals in this study picked up on while growing up. For the participants in this study, the perceived carelessness on their parents’ behalf often led to resentment in which they felt their parents were to blame rather than the disorder they suffered from.

Some identified that their parents using ADHD as an excuse for the inability to fulfill parental responsibilities was part of the reason participants felt the need to place blame on the parent rather than the disorder. Perhaps the phenomenon these children described regarding making excuses is attributable to Hansson Hallerod and colleagues’ (2015) conceptualization of a self-fulfilling prophecy: an ADHD parent’s concern for inadequacy leads to their choices to avoid difficult tasks. Alternatively, perhaps the increased levels of stigma surrounding ADHD, especially observable symptoms and behavior (Canu et al., 2024), was a contributor to the sense of blame and disappointment identified within so many participants.

The final subtheme of Navigating Broken Expectations contained a positive facet of the dynamic: Taking Back Control and Moving On. Individuals in this study identified a turning point in their relationships with their ADHD parents in which they perceived the ability to start writing their own stories rather than continuing to be a part of their parents’. While some informants recalled a singular moment that led to this realization, others recounted that a reflection of the positives within their relationships with their parents was what helped them continue to move on. Aspects of families sticking together and acknowledging the progress their parents have made were ways in which participants said they were able to move on. Essentially, informants were able to put the negative experiences of having an ADHD parent growing up behind them by focusing on more uplifting domains like their family’s ability to work through struggles together and their ADHD parents’ improvements (disorder-related and other) over time. Additionally, it was shared by fifteen individuals that learning more about the disorder aided in creating empathy and understanding within their relationships with their parents.

Although slightly different, individuals in both the studies by Carr-Fanning and McGuckin (2022) and Belo-Tomic and colleagues (2021) identified that having ADHD themselves gave them a place to learn more about the disorder and better understand their parents. However, the participants in this study that identified as having ADHD themselves (n = 8) overarchingly did not experience this; in fact, several of these informants identified that because their ADHD symptoms were so similar to the symptoms of their parents, it was challenging to communicate and co-exist, and commonly caused clashing within the parent-child relationships. It may be possible that individuals also having an ADHD diagnosis could contribute to a more intense, and possibly negative, interpretation of the unappealing facets of their experiences.

Reliability and Validity

To align with best practices for qualitative reliability and validity (Creswell & Creswell Báez, 2021), audio transcriptions were checked by the second author before proceeding with data interpretation. Additionally, development of the final thematic map was completed in collaboration with the second author at every iteration of the map. As mentioned, the first author actively engaged in the process of bracketing throughout the course of the study. While acknowledging the process of bracketing and other tools of researcher reflexivity, it should be noted that an inherent part of qualitative research (as well as other domains of research) is that researcher bias and interpretation shapes the research process; in sum, while biases can be acknowledged and, to some degree, set aside through bracketing and other reflexive tools, the intention is not to approach a qualitative project with a completely blank slateFootnote 4 (Slife & Christensen, 2013).

To further discuss bracketing, the first author noted that the topic of positive notions of parental ADHD was a somewhat challenging area to maintain neutrality, possibly because of the high volume of negative detailed recounts (i.e., Depreciating Self-Worth, Guilt, Shame and Embarrassment). It was initially expected to find more positivity throughout, primarily resulting from the findings from Belo-Tomic and colleagues (2021). However, after an increasingly large proportion of negative experiences, it was challenging to shift to a different mindset.

Additionally, it frequently felt as if participants eliciting Resignation may be doing so inauthentically. This was primarily because their anecdotes contained feelings of disappointment and frustration, and the question arose: “How can participants actually feel okay with these permanent responsibilities if they sound so sad while talking about them?” Only after the later development of Navigating Broken Expectations was it confirmed that those parts of their experiences may not have been inauthentic, but perhaps just an earlier part of the journey, the Navigation. Similarly, while it was somewhat logical to understand where informants were coming from in their anecdotes regarding patience, it brought questions about the temporality of their perceptions of their experiences when discussing Blaming the Parent, not the Disorder. It seemed that informants came to terms with their situation as a child of an ADHD parent (i.e., Resignation), and once faced with the realization that something was less perfect than they remembered as a child (i.e., Epiphany), they restructured the target of the blame in their mind.

It is a possibility that the temporality of their experiences, particularly their perceptions of their experiences, may not necessarily need to be chronological to make logical sense. For instance, one informant who truly believed that their negative experiences were not their parent’s fault could also truly believe that their parent was to blame at a different point in time with full genuineness. This does not mean that the informant was intentionally deceptive; perhaps, instead, they were detailing the story as they remembered it. The first author recognized the initial judgment toward participants was unfair and harsh, and acknowledged that participants being provided with the space to tell their story, change their mind, and retell their story in a way that is genuine to the way they perceived it was a vital component to the qualitative process.

Josselson (2011) identified that, in varying forms of qualitative research, a recurring difficulty is the notion of narrative ownership; she said that “the person storying his or her life is already interpreting experience in constructing the account. The researchers’ task is to offer a telling at some different level of discourse” (Josselson, 2011, p. 39). More specifically, the owner of the story is neither the participant nor the researcher, because the story is a co-construction between the two. From this, we can identify that while informants may not have had the intention of portraying inauthenticity, our perception of this portrayal was inherent to our interpretation of their experience. This is true, as well, for our later realization that perhaps we were incorrect, and that their restructuring of blame was an entirely different phenomenon to begin with.

Qualitative research often attempts to provide a voice to individuals that belong to groups that are underrepresented or fall through the cracks of large-scale quantitative research (Gergen et al., 2015); with the limited research involving emerging adults who grew up with ADHD parents, this study provides an opportunity for this population to tell their stories and find a place in research. In fact, two participants indicated that the content of the interview – as well as the opportunity to talk about their experiences – was validating and made them feel seen. One of these two informants thanked the interviewer and mentioned that she was relieved that someone was interested in her story and the stories of others, and she stated that she “[thought] that it [was] beautiful that someone [was] finally asking the question” (Kristin).

In many ways, the findings for the current study are in alignment with prior literature on both adult and parental ADHD as well as child perceptions of parent-child relationships. However, many themes and subthemes identified in this study are novel to this field of research and have yet to be exemplified in other areas of literature.

Member Checks

In total, three participants completed member checksFootnote 5 via Zoom following data interpretation; these member checks were conversational in nature and generally followed the structure recommended by Braun and Clarke (2006, 2021) and Creswell and Báez (2021). All three participants detailed they were excited to be a part of the study and were present and engaged with the discussion. Participation was described as being “therapeutic,” “meaningful,” “relatable,” and overall a “great experience.” Two participants identified that they resonated highly with all aspects of the thematic map, and they noted that the map was both “comprehensive” and “not surprising.” The third participant mentioned that while she didn’t completely identify with some of the themes and subthemes discussed, she inferred that “some things are smaller in scale” for her compared to others because she did not live with her ADHD father for a long period of time. This participant also noted that despite her feeling a smaller connection with the map, she still felt the themes were “very fitting.”

Regarding the idea of a temporal shift in blame, Jacie noted in their member check that this shift is exactly what happened while they were growing up. More specifically, Jacie mentioned that while growing up, they felt a “dichotomy” with blame in which at the beginning, they felt as if their mom’s ADHD was not her fault and that they couldn’t blame her for having it, but “at some point it kind of became her fault” because she wouldn’t put in the effort to be different. This conversation with Jacie was helpful confirmation that the chronology of blame, as identified previously, was not necessarily linear.

One seemingly important aspect of a member check conversation involved the discussion of future directions. In her member check, Grace became emotional in discussing her involvement in the field of psychology as it related to her experience with her parents’ ADHD; She asked, “What’s next?” in regard to clinical implications and future directions in the domain of parental ADHD. The conversation continued through the discussion of her parents’ denial of ADHD symptoms and its detrimental impact on her relationship with them, and she identified that she wanted to avoid continuing the cycle with children of her own she planned on having in the future. Grace identified that she believed her awareness of her own ADHD gave her the upper hand in addressing symptom impact on those around her, including future family relationships; from this, Grace and the first author discussed that they hoped spreading awareness of the detriments parental ADHD may have on children in the home would be a step in the right direction regarding education and prevention in this area.

Strengths and Limitations

A major strength of this study was its novel subject matter. The goals of qualitative studies do not aim for large-scale generalizability for the populations they investigate; because of this, the research questions posed are best suited for qualitative design. Up until this point, few scholarly publications have investigated the lived experiences of individuals who grew up with a parent with ADHD. Additionally, data were collected utilizing a sample with individuals who grew up across nine different states, allowing for a broad range of geographic locations across the U.S. to be included within the study. Both existing qualitative research studies on this topic were conducted outside of the U.S. (Australia: Belo-Tomic et al., 2021; Ireland: Carr-Fanning & McGuckin, 2022). From this, this study can be identified as the first U.S.-based sample for a research study of this design.

Additionally, a qualitative design allows for a different frame of depth regarding informant experiences. While a profusion of quantitatively based studies are able to identify psychometric scales that can hone in on particular aspects of an experience, the nature of qualitative inquiry allows for a more in-depth lens regarding the experiences as a whole and how informants interpret their experiences. This is not to say that one methodology is better than the other; they are inherently incomparable. However, for this topic, it should be noted that the use of qualitative inquiry provides a strength that quantitative inquiry cannot grasp. Some may argue that because the individual experience (as identified in many domains qualitative research) is not generalizable in the same way as some quantitative research is, there is some degree of weakness or limitation in the application of qualitative findings; however, the idea of generalizability (among other quantitatively-oriented constructs) is rather “tangential or inapplicable” to qualitative methods because the “goals of qualitative inquiry differ substantially from those of the traditional [quantitative] empiricist” (Gergen, 2014, p. 50). From this, we see the reports of the individual experience not as a limitation due to the lack of quantitative generalizability, but as a strength to the inherent goals of qualitative inquiry.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed., text rev.; DSM-5-TR) was released in 2022, but it is unclear if any major changes to the diagnostic criteria of ADHD were made (APA, 2022). This may be seen as a limitation to the present study, as symptomatology and interview questions were based on the DSM-5 (APA, 2013) and may contain changes with the revised text. As individuals are between the ages of 18 and 25, it is reasonable to say that their parents may be roughly between the ages of 40 to 60; depending on the time their parent was diagnosed with ADHD, it is possible that, with the additions of new DSM criteria, their parents would no longer meet diagnostic criteria. Although some participants did disclose the age of their parents and the age at which their parents were diagnosed, this information was not requested by the Interview Guide. Parental age of diagnosis may be useful to note moving forward as we make sense of areas such as social roles, aging, and the time and year parents were diagnosed with ADHD.

Additionally, trusting that participants will identify themselves as having a parent with ADHD may be seen as risky, as there is no true, ethical way to ensure that ADHD was, indeed, present in the home. It may also be possible that comorbidities or misdiagnosis of ADHD was present in participants’ parents; we have no way of ensuring that ADHD was the sole diagnosis. Finally, while interview questions were developed in such a way that attempted to target ADHD-specific symptoms and behavior, it is entirely possible that comorbid conditions, birth order effects, marital status, and marital quality may have had an impact on the experiences the participants in this study discussed.

Future Directions

This study begins to fill the gap in this area of exploration, and suggests considerations for moving forward, such as a more refined focus on the duties these children feel obligated to fulfill in respect to their parents and how this impacts them across the lifespan. It raises questions regarding how children’s perceptions of their experience change over time as they learn more about their own relationships and other relevant areas of life as they grow older. In alignment with Baltes’ (1997) theory of lifespan development, perhaps the experiences these individuals have with their ADHD parents provide them with a balance of gains and losses that drive them to be more well-equipped for other, similar relationships as they grow older. With the rate of persistence of ADHD into adulthood being as high as 61% (Sibley et al., 2017), it seems likely that understanding how to cope with others’ ADHD symptoms may be a useful skill.

Future qualitative investigations of the impact parental ADHD has on children in the home should aim to further identify the long-term implications parental ADHD has on an individual’s conceptualization of self and their perceptions of the world they live in. Perhaps a qualitative comparison of emerging adults and middle-aged or older adults who grew up with ADHD parents may better identify how individuals perceive their experiences over a longer span of time. Narrative analysisFootnote 6 may prove to be an effective tool to address this, considering the temporal experience of blame was paramount to interpretations of these informants’ experiences. Among qualitative-oriented methods, narrative analyses offer exceptionally compelling interpretations of experience through longitudinally based studies.

Looking through a more treatment-focused lens, it becomes apparent that continuing education and advocacy regarding ADHD’s impact within the home is of utmost importance; this is especially true concerning family systems where adult ADHD in the home has the potential to impact interpersonal relationships with other house members. Participants’ emotional responses to thoughts of passing on ADHD-related interpersonal detriments to children of their own highlight the need to continue talking about the weight of ADHD symptoms beyond the sequelae of clinical diagnostics and treatment regiments. If denial of symptoms is a major contributor to the harming of familial relationships, perhaps early intervention (particularly through continuing education and awareness of the disorder and its potential impact) is a strong start to addressing the issue at its root rather than retroactive (or, in some cases, concurrent) treatment protocols that may be perceived as less helpful or effective after the passage of time. Additionally, it is our hope that promoting the advocacy of the disorder and education of its impact can encourage the availability and implementation of treatment as early as possible for families impacted by ADHD.

This study advances our understanding of adult ADHD and its impact on the home environment from these children’s perspectives, highlighting the importance of family-based approaches to education and advocacy in the multidisciplinary field of behavioral health. As so many informants in this study acknowledged, the impact of parental ADHD on the family unit has the potential to create long-lasting (if not permanent) consequences for those within the home. While education and advocacy about the disorder itself may alleviate some of the stressors that ADHD can bring to the household, it is not enough to simply define and describe the symptomology. Instead, the interpersonal impact of the disorder on the family unit should be addressed; this is especially true in the context of highlighting familial expectations and responsibilities before disorder-related struggles have the chance to foster blame and resentment within the home.