Adult ADHD Guide To: Improving Relationships

Common Communication Pitfalls

Often the symptoms of ADHD make it difficult to interact with others. There are many ways that this occurs:

Communication Pitfalls

Good Social Skills are essential in academic, work, and personal life. The development of social skills is one predictor of success for individuals with ADHD. Awareness of your personal areas of difficulty and a commitment to improve them are the first steps. Over the next week note any social difficulties you think you may have (like the ones above), and consider the corresponding common problem in ADHD that you think may be contributing to this. Also pay attention to which of your relationships that this impacts the most e.g. family, friends, significant others etc. Mindful Listening Problems with inattention and impulsivity make it hard for those with ADHD to communicate with others in a reciprocal manner: where one person talks, the other listens and vice versa. Individuals with ADHD will find it hard to listen to the conversation, without being distracted or loosing attention. They may also interrupt others or talk excessively. This frustrates the person they are communicating with and they may cease wanting to talk. This creates strains on relationships, and make it difficult to for those with ADHD to maintain and form relationships. Try these over the next week:

Listen

1. Sit down with a partner and let them talk for about five minutes (or longer if you feel you can manage it).

2. Listen with your full attention: make eye contact, lean towards them and take in as much of what they say as you can. Do not worry if you do not absorb every word or detail, just aim for the gist.

3. Withhold any impulses to interrupt or give feedback. Just listen.

Speak

4. After they have finished speaking, appropriately summarise what you heard. You could day something along the lines of:

“Sounds like you had a busy day at work”

“That’s unfortunate about the train delay”

5. Speak slower than usual, so you can choose your words thoughtfully.

Reading Non-Verbal Cues

Communication is more than words. It is just as, or even more important, to read individuals non-verbal cues. This can include their:

  • Facial Expressions
  • Body Language e.g. posture, eye contact
  • Tone of Voice

Individuals with ADHD tend not to pay attention to these cues where, similar to verbal communication, distractions and inattention play a major role. But by practising attending to these cues, individuals can learn to recognise them and use this information to have better communication with others. Watch an appropriate movie and take a minute to observe one of the scenes. Make some notes about the following:

  • Look at a characters face and identify the emotion that the character is expressing at a particular scene.
  • Look at their body posture – are they interested (leaning forward) or are they uninterested (slouched or leaning backward).
  • What does their tone of voice communicate? After you feel confident, try it with friends and family during a conversation and keep track of their non-verbal cues.

Relationships and Communication

Due to the social communication difficulties, as well as some other effects of ADHD, individual’s relationships new and old can become strained. ADHD can have a range of effects, particularly on three kinds of relationships:

  • Intimate Relationships: difficulties in listening to your partner, controlling your emotions, and planning and organisation for anniversaries, bills and events, may create tension with your partner.
  • Friendships: Research has shown adults with ADHD have problems with both starting and maintaining social relationships. Most will have friends, but fewer had close friendships. This could be because they had trouble resolving conflicts, weren’t there for them to vent their emotions or because they could not control their anger or other emotions.
  • Parenting; being a parent can often be stressful and ADHD amplifies the stress and increases the demands on the parent. This is particularly during watchful play, making meals and controlling emotions in the face of them being naughty. There is also the other concern that your child too may have ADHD. You should have a go and try to identify any problems you have been having in your relationships with others and use the strategies from this module or other modules that you have learnt to rectify these problems.