Childhood mental health and adult family relationships: How ADHD shapes experiences with intimate unions and parenthood

Abstract

Increasingly recognized as a chronic condition that can endure across the life course, childhood attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with less stable family formation and more strain around intimate unions (dating, cohabitation and marriage) and parenthood. This article reviews and evaluates multidisciplinary research on childhood ADHD, intimate unions and parenthood, with the purpose of motivating future sociological research in this area. The paper is organized into three general sections. First, I provide an overview of information on ADHD including its diagnosis and treatment, cross‐disciplinary etiologies, and sociodemographic correlates. Next, I blend sociological perspectives on labeling and stigma, social stress, and the life course to consider the role of ADHD‐related stigma in shaping associations of childhood ADHD with family formation processes (intimate unions and parenthood) and family functioning (relationship quality and communication) in adulthood. Finally, I discuss opportunities for future sociological research on childhood ADHD and adult family relationships that have the potential to contribute both to empirical research on childhood ADHD and adult family relationships, as well as to sociological research at the intersection of family and health.