Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It

by Gabor Maté

Studies do show that if parents or siblings have ADD, a child in that family will have a greatly increased statistical risk for having ADD as well. ADD is also found more commonly in people whose first-degree relatives are alcoholics or suffer from depression, anxiety, addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder or Tourette’s syndrome. It may appear from such facts that this motley collection of related syndromes is largely hereditary—but to assume that would be like believing that if there are three generations of butchers or bakers or candlestick makers in a family, then meat cutting, baking and candle manufacturing must also be genetic. The family atmosphere in which the child spends the early formative years has a major impact on brain development. It is obvious that brain/mind problems such as ADD are far more likely to develop in families where the parents are struggling with dysfunction or psychological problems of their own. It would be astonishing if children growing up in such unsettled environments did not develop some of the same problems. No genes need be involved at all for these conditions to run in families.2