The Missing Voices-Mothers Raising Children With ADHD: A Qualitative Inquiry

Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) is a behavioural disorder commonly diagnosed among children. The symptoms associated with the diagnosis not only affect the child, but everyone connected to the child. For mothers raising children with ADHD there are often various demands and pressures placed on them. This major research paper addresses some of these mothering experiences through a qualitative methodology known as narrative inquiry (NI). This study centers mothers’ stories of everyday encounters at home, school, in medical clinics, and within the community. It also takes up these narratives through the framework of critical feminist race theory (CRFT), with a pinch of Foucauldian philosophy addressing knowledge, power, and governmentality through bio-politics. Jonathan Gottschall said it best, “We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the minds stays up all night, telling itself stories.” I invite you on a journey of stories through the eyes of every loving mother raising a child with ADHD.