Hi everyone. I don’t have ADHD, but someone who joined my family some time ago does (we’ll call him T), and is currently going through some trouble which I find quite perplexing.
Some background: T has two daughters (8yo and 6yo) under shared custody with his ex-wife (they spend roughly the same time with each of them during the week). T has had some serious difficulties through his life, some of which are structural and will likely stay with him forever, such as difficulty to hold onto a job or keeping his house tidy (even less so when his kids are home), and others of which are temporary by nature, such as the recent death of his mother.
His daughters had been having some issues for quite some time, including school performance and very frequent misbehaving. I don’t particularly dislike kids, but holy shit, the very moment they got used to me, they became imps, almost constant screaming, fighting each other, not attending to reason, and so on. And I’ve barely seen them a handful of times. Anyhow, T decided to seek the root of these issues, discussed with his ex-wife the possibility of getting them evaluated for ADHD, and the ex-wife refused. T went forwards anyway, and the girls are now diagnosed with ADHD, and assigned to a psychologist who should theoretically have a session with them each month, but in practice, they’re given less than 5 appointments a year. In general, T’s complaints that he wanted more guidance on what to do with them have fallen on deaf ears.
A few weeks ago, social services knock into T’s home, and naturally, they find that the house is a mess, because it always is. They take note of it all, and recently summoned him for a meeting.
T’s current partner recently told me how the meeting went: social services claimed that the kids are sometimes late to class and they sometimes don’t go at all, attributed all the responsibility to him, and he refuted that, while he’s sometimes late when it’s his turn to take them to school, they only completely miss class when they’re staying with their mother. Social services disregarded this (shouldn’t they have the means to corroborate it?), and proceeded to explain that, as a person with ADHD who cannot keep his life in order, he doesn’t seem to have the competencies to raise the kids, so they want to impose a change in custody where they would stay with him less than 33% of the time.
What I’m getting from this is that the only thing the administration will take into account when determining whether you should be raising your kids or not is your medical conditions and how disorganized is your house. The kids have some issues, sure (I’m not arguing that they being late to class or missing at all is ok), but if there are two separated parents, and one has an ADHD diagnosis and the other doesn’t, is it ok to attribute all issues on the diagnosed parent rather than checking where the problems are coming from? Shouldn’t the fact that the kids have ADHD a reason to want to make sure and the parent who does also have it to be more involved in their upbringing, since the one who doesn’t will have less experience with it and its difficulties?
If one could “just hyperfocus” on something, AD(H)S would be a weapon, not a disorder.
Some of us can. Which is why that was merely a suggestion. If it’s not applicable to OP they can disregard. Did you not know people could do that?
My understanding is, that the hyperfocus sets in for something that catches ones attention in the right way. If one was able to do that deliberately with any chosen task/topic, would it still be an “attention deficit”?
It can’t just be explicitly directed. But in this case, the ADHD friend in question already has a vested interest in the subject. That makes it much easier to get a dopamine fix by digging into that subject.
That’s true. The circumstances could be right. If reading laws somehow put him off though, the criticality of acquiring this knowledge might still not offset the “negative” dopamine.
I’ve been wondering lately if I wouldn’t be more able to control it if I’d been educated in a way that was for me.
On one hand, the trauma from big and small punishments for not being as good at “traditional” task completion styles causes a certain type of reaction around task completion. I think this negative side is the side most people would agree with.
But aside from the present negatives, what about the absent positives? Most people get educated from early childhood to complete tasks in a style that suits them. The systemic memory of how to complete tasks the way neurotypical people complete tasks gets passed down to them and gives them the best chance to get the best of their inherent way of doing things. What if people who complete tasks differently had this sort of education? Would controlling the hyper fixation be more universal? Idk just something I’ve been thinking about.
Edit spelling
Interestingly, some of the research that I’ve read has been pulling at that thread - there are possible evolutionary advantages to ADHD and specific situations in which people with ADHD (innattentive type, myself) actually excel over neurotypical people.
I know, but even those theories (if we talk about the same ones) argue with the attention quickly swapping to new situations, making one practically a “problem solver”. I think, however, that still only works out under the right circumstances and might only be an advantage in the statistical median. Some problems/topics simply don’t catch ones attention and then the missing dopamin rush will simply prevent one from focusing on it. So I think someone with ADHS alone would have a big evolutionary problem, but in a group of people they can jump into action whenever the right circumstances occur and then solve whatever it is quicker than anyone else.
Interesting insight - presumably any evolutionary advantage to ADHS would be due to an improved ability to procreate (jumping into action, making the opposite sex… happy… by saving the day) or to stay alive (jumping into action and staying alive to procreate another day).
I definitely agree on both counts. I’ll have to go looking for some recent studies to see what’s going on these days in the research.
The statistical significance is always key. But effect size is important.
There’s the concept of correlation, as well - there could be a statistically significant correlation, but it could still be either a weak correlation or a strong correlation.
Again, definitely piqued my interest for digging into some psychology research again! Thank youfor that.
Did I trigger your hyperfocus? 😁
haha yes you did lmao
fwiw, my hyperfocus, coupled with an autistic interest in how the mind works, enabled me to get a degree in mathematics and degree in psychology.
i have other co-occuring disorders that compounded things though such that i can’t really work or do anything economically productive with those degrees, sadly
but your message just put a smile on my face, so thank you :D
edit: such that I can’t YET really work or do anything economically productive with those degrees