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.