Parents of Children with ADHD Diagnosis

After reading an article titled Various ADHD-Associated Problematic Life Events in Parents of Children with ADHD Diagnosis, I am well aware of the difficulties and hardships of a parent who has a child with a learning disability. The study compared data and statistics of sociodemographic characteristics in relation to problematic life events. The purpose of the article was to determine if there was any correlation between problematic life events and being a parent to a child with ADHD. According to the article,  Diagnosis of ADHD in parents of children diagnosed with ADHD is reported to be between 2 and 8 times higher compared to the general population. I believe that this statistic is astounding and fully supports multiple theories that disabilities can be inherited genetically. Parents of students with a ADHD had higher levels of having a disciplinary punishment (in school or in professional life) and being exposed to a physical trauma throughout their lives. Parents of students with ADHD had lower levels of College or University graduation and higher levels of repeating academic years. Parents of students with ADHD also had a higher  frequency of traffic violations. Also, parents of students with ADHD are shown to have higher levels of substance abuse or history of alcohol and tobacco use. These results suggest that the parents of children with ADHD should be assessed in terms of this disorder. After reading this article, I wonder how many parents of students with learning disabilities and ADHD have lived their entire lives without knowledge of having a disability themselves. To live your entire life and not understand your disability or to be given the proper accommodations is truly a sad thought to conceive.

In my experience, students with ADHD require frequent feedback and often are not confident that they are on task for the assignment. I have students with ASD and often my students request sound canceling headphones because another student has loud vocalizations or maintenance is working outside of the building. Often times, behavior problems occur in my classroom as a result of an unknown antecedent. There have been many situations in which I have discovered the antecedent well after the behavior occurs due to my inability to recognize the sound or distraction. I found this article to be very useful and I personally connected to the article because I have a family member who was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder in her late fifties. Throughout her life she struggled with manic episodes and mood swings and it effected her daily living. There was a family history of emotional disorders, depression, and alcoholism as well. The weak point of the article was that the statistic analysis was hard to interpret.


Dusunen, A., Aristirma,K.,(2014). The Journal of Psychiatry and Neurological Sciences, (Various ADHD Associated Problematic Life Events in Parents of Children with ADHD Diagnosis) pg. 61-68