You, Me, and Our ADHD Family: Practical Steps to Cultivate Healthy Relationships

by Tamara Rosier

ADHD doesn't just affect individuals. It affects entire families. Impulsiveness, emotional turbulence, poor organizational skills, unpredictable schedules, and inconsistent discipline are just some of the factors that can contribute to misunderstanding and difficult interpersonal relationships in a neurodiverse family. But that doesn't mean families dealing with ADHD are doomed to constant miscommunication and stress. It just means you may need a different strategy.That's where You, Me, and Our ADHD Family comes in. Packed with honest assessments of the challenges you face and practical strategies to help you focus on protecting and improving the relationships that matter most, this book shows you how to· identify ADHD traits and their impact on relationships· manage overwhelming emotions effectively· resolve disagreements constructively· persevere despite setbacks· and much moreA happy family life takes work, but it's work that yields life-changing rewards. You, Me, and Our ADHD Family makes that work easier so your family can grow stronger--together.

Genres: Adhd, Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

Published September 24, 2024

Reviews

[Beth Huegli · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful reminder that although it can be tough, working through family conflict is worth it!

[Cassie VDH · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really encouraging - both in practical techniques and the reassurance that the journey can not only be survived but also enjoyed on the way. Good reminder to really have joy in my kids and meet them where they are.

[Erin Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

ESSENTIAL for neurospicy families! I had the honor of interviewing Dr. Tamara Rosier for my podcast, so I received an early copy of the book. It’s packed with practical tools and relatable explanations for how to navigate ADHD in families and relationships. I truly didn’t understand my neurodivergent brain until I read Dr. Rosier’s first book (Your Brain’s Not Broken), and her work has helped me navigate that very loud inner critic in my head that tells me there’s something wrong with me. It has helped me make peace with myself, after years of feeling misunderstood and beating myself up for impulsivity, time blindness, and nervous system dysregulation.
Everyone needs to read this!

[Claudia Jenni Magnus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just as her first book, this is such a gem. Great for any ADHDer and there people. Also highly recommend it to any coaches, psychologists, psychiatrists and anyone who works with neurodivergent people.

[Patrick Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

You, Me, And Our ADHD Family

- It’s a family business, it’s in the genes
- The goal is to have a loving functional family. It is not to fix anyone because no one is broken. It is to have respectful loving relationships
- RSD: The insecurities, self doubt of others love, exhaustion and frustration. Hiding my feelings, only for them to lash out unexpectedly. The sensitivity to any criticism.
- RSD puts other people on edge. It makes others walk on eggshells around you
- The cycle of vicious lashing out and subsequent remorse
- The blame cycle
- Emotional un regulation
- It is your responsibility to manage your ADHD and minimize its impacts on others. It is the responsibility of the family to adjust their expectations, you are neurodivergent and struggle with executive dysfunction
- Mischievous monkeys - your loudest ADHD symptoms and coping mechanisms
- The voices and emotions in your head, the constant noise. Only you can manage your monkeys. Sometimes the monkeys are good and sometimes bad. Deciding how we use the monkeys is crucial in managing ADHD
- The sense of control and energy from anger
- Emotions are strongly tied to memory
- What are your emotions telling you?
- Use emotions as information, not control. Emotions as intel, they are not to control you
- Primary and secondary emotions. Emotional reasoning
- CBT/DBT - don’t judge your emotions, observe them
- Emotions permeate the house
- Don’t find the blame, search for where the process broke down
- Learn about emotions - how we feel app
- Take responsibility for your emotions
- Parents - model appropriate behaviors
- Discipline behavior, not emotions
- Hyper and hypo emotional states
- Self regulation
- Transformational thinking
- Mindfulness
- There is a section around the 5-4 hours left that I was not fully paying attention to
- Survival thinking v transformational thinking
- Tolerance zone
- Survival thinking = bad | transformational thinking = good
- Emotional safety: seen, heard, valued, allowed and encouraged to be your truest self
- Are you an emotionally safe person in your family
- Vulnerable: honest, sharing, with caring people that you feel emotionally safe around
- Toxic and unsafe people
- Boundaries are stated, not negotiated. They don’t need to be explained. They are not about what the other person will do, it is about what you will do
- Peccadillo - little annoyances. The everyday things, the behaviors that we all have that annoy those around us
- Preference or peccadillo - this is an important part. Is it an annoyance or a preference, is it a deal breaker or a problem that can be solved, negotiated, or compromised
- Emotional pools
- Now my favorite part, communication challenges: poor listening, rambling, slow processing, stuttering and stumbling, terrible working memory, disjointed story telling, verbal tics, etc. All of these are me
- Working memory is only 10-15 seconds
- My apologies, I am a slow listener. Key words to grab attention and pull them back
- Be open with each other about the quirks you experience and how they affect you. Develop strategies together, as you discuss the peculiarities in a nonjudgmental way. Individual with ADHD must develop strategies themselves (my addition). The goal of family communication is to foster understanding and connection, not to debate the peculiarities of your conversation
- Anxiety’s impact on the household
- Three kinds of empathy: emotional, cognitive, compassionate
- Family systems theory: In the family system, members are strongly emotionally connected. The family is an emotional unit. Any change in one individual within a family is likely to influence the entire system and may even lead to changes in other members. make sense of human behavior by focusing on the interactions between people in a family. It views the family as a complex system of interconnected and interdependent individuals.
- Wow, tell me more about this. Relationships are a living, breathing, complex, interconnected being
- I relate to emotional empathy - it seems manipulative, people pleasing, and charming
- Triangulation
- Absurdity of some arguments
- The essence of a thriving family life, doesn’t lay in avoiding conflicts altogether. Instead it resides on the skillfulness of conflict resolution. Deliberate discussions, provide a way to approach differences predictably and calmly
- In a neurodiverse family, it is essential to foster compromise, respect differing perspectives, and strive to discover shared ground to cultivate stronger improved relationships
- Make amends and don’t cut people out. Reach, repair, reconnect
- I loved this book, amazing, phenomenal, reread, on the list of first books to give to people wanting to read about ADHD. Great for newly diagnosed, people steeped in the subject, ADHDers, ADHD Al-Anons, all of it. It’s a fantastic book

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe I found this book late in my ADHD study and maybe it doesn't shine as an audiobook-- for me it repeated concepts presented in other books -- plus it seemed prescriptive and dry. Maybe the written form is more impactful. There are a few books each year that I try to hurry and get through to see what concepts and value they contain, and this was one of them.
The one metaphor I did enjoy was near the end - about emotional regulation as a type of pool-jumping experience -- some people jump in quickly (to emotional dysregulation) and try to get others to join them. This is the one concept I really felt could be applicable.
I imagine kids could relate to the other animal references. The author has a very open and friendly tone -- and is articulate, kind-hearted and tries to circumvent downfalls like shame (over-identifying with flaws). Identifying the good in each person is an awesome priority to have, and focusing on/articulating needs keeps gratitude in balance.
I believe this book also uses the term compassionate accountability -- which is a new favorite of mine. An awesome practice that will help us heal ourselves and those in our influence.

[kimc · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book after hearing Dr. Rosier on the Christian Parent/Crazy World podcast. I really didn’t know about ADHD prior to having children diagnosed within the last year. I’m so glad I heard the podcast and read the book! Dr. Rosier explains how brains of those with ADHD work and respond. Having multiple family members including herself gives her a unique perspective on ADHD symptoms. I now feel more equipped to help my family members - those with and without ADHD - to understand and help each other to enjoy each other. The book encouraged me and turned fear into hope. I highly recommend the book.

[Ruth Walsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really need to listen to this again and see if it had a workbook. I've listened to books before that required a deeper study. It's not just like fiction where you read for entertainment or in my case, listen to be able to focus on mundane tasks.

There are so many books for Adhders that are focused on how to do all the things, understanding or acceptance but not a lot that focus on understanding or developing emotional maturity.

[Otto Munoz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book. 10 out of 10 would highly recommend to anyone with a family member or spouse with ADHD. It gives a solid rundown of the main and side traits of ADHD particularly its emotional aspects and strategies to cope and understand. This is definitely a book to keep on my shelf and reread multiple times.

[Winyen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciate the applicability of this book, but the structuring left something to be desired. I don't quite understand why whole chapters were dedicated towards describing the anxiety monkeys, for example, yet the chapters for actual action steps were equally as long and also not structured well. The diagrams were lacking too.

[Kristina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard to keep attention. Required reading

[Nicole]

3.5 not as useful/practical as I had hoped

[Kayla Seidl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad! I read half at one point and the other half like 6 months later which doesn’t help. But I flagged a decent amount of things in it.