ADHD and My Family: Searching for a More Scientific Explanation

ADHD and My Family: Searching for a More Scientific Explanation

My father, like many Asian immigrants, left India to pursue his educational goals in America in order to provide a better life for his family. He arrived in the U.S. with fourteen dollars in his coat pocket, a suitcase in his hands, and a will to succeed. For my father, in a place like America where opportunities were plentiful and where hard work actually paid off there was no excuse not to succeed. The practical translation of this belief meant that if his children worked hard in school there was nothing they too could not achieve. As such, in my father's household, not doing well in school was not an option.

Because of his cultural background my father found my brother's poor performance in school incomprehensible. I too was puzzled by my brother's attitude towards school. He and I grew up in the same house with the same parents and the same set of values. Yet, he seemed to not care about school at all. For a long time, my family and I attributed my brother's C's in school and obvious inability to concentrate to laziness and a lack of motivation.

My brother's diagnosis with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) was both a

welcomed explanation and a shock to my parents. On the one hand, my mother and father had

begun to question their parenting abilities, and this allowed them to shift the blame from themselves. On the other hand, they had a very limited understanding of mental illness. In particular, the concept of mental illness itself was not something they were terribly familiar with. For my parents, problems of the mind were problems that existed within the scope of personal will power.

In many ways, I partially subscribe to the world-view that my parents hold. As such, until recently, I've been skeptical of my brother's diagnosis. In particular, at the time, it seemed to me that distractibility was something that I too suffered from. I didn't enjoy forcing myself to concentrate, but I did it because I knew that I had to. In addition, my brother seemed perfectly capable of concentrating when he was playing soccer, watching the Discovery channel or playing video games. In my mind, his problems appeared to be that he was spoiled and didn't like being told what to do. In addition, I think that ADHD gave everyone in my family the excuse that they needed.