Interaction of recalled parental ADHD symptoms and rearing behavior with current attachment and emotional dysfunction in adult offspring with ADHD

Research into attachment and emotion regulation has shown that children with ADHD are at risk of developing attachment disorders and emotion regulation disturbances, which in part may be due to the rearing style of their parents. No such data exists for adults with persistent ADHD. We hypothesized that current attachment style and emotion processing of adult patients with ADHD may be influenced by the presence of parental ADHD symptoms when the now adult patients were children, assuming that ADHD symptoms of parents have an impact on their parenting style. We examined recalled parental ADHD symptoms and rearing style as well as current attachment and emotion regulation abilities in a sample of 73 adults with ADHD using several self-rating instruments. Recalled prevalence of ADHD symptoms in the mother, and less so in the father, of adult patients with ADHD was significantly associated with partly adverse parental rearing styles, current attachment problems in romantic partnerships and emotion regulation disturbances compared with adult ADHD patients without possibly affected parent. ADHD symptoms in parents of children with ADHD may present a risk factor for attachment problems and poor emotion regulation when ADHD children are grown.