“Falling Through the Ceiling: Our ADHD Family Memoir” (available online at www.enabletables.com) offers a poignant look at the challenges encountered by both parents and children as they cope with attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Authors Audrey R. Jones and Larry A. Jones, M.D., are candid about the struggles their upwardly mobile, African American family endured with ADHD.
Discussion or acknowledgment of ADHD in African American families has been historically taboo. The self-imposed stigma of having ADHD looms large, yet scholarly studies of the disorder often rely on personal and caregiver reports. Based on their own experiences, Audrey and Larry crafted a blueprint for discussing the causes and effects of ADHD and the ever-increasing possibilities through diagnosis and treatment.
Married for over 46 years, Audrey and Larry have three sons. During adolescence, each child was diagnosed with ADHD, just as hyperactive disorder was becoming a recognized clinical condition. Audrey and Larry sought help from teachers and therapists, and realized they had much to learn and share. (For at least 20 years of his career as a pediatrician, Larry did not link his children’s symptoms and signs of ADHD to himself.)
In 2008, Audrey was stricken with an illness that led to a permanent disability. Her gift of recovery included an opportunity for Larry and Audrey to seriously reflect on their sons’ actions, starts, and misfires as young adults pursuing higher education and meaningful employment – all while living with the challenges of ADHD. Rather than just writing about the road to recovery, Audrey and Larry chose to tell their whole story, with the intent of helping other families acknowledge and address behaviors that can adversely affect couples and families.
“Our story was written to reveal to parents and professionals the path that our family took to get to a place of resilience with ADHD,” they said. “It is our hope that your path will be straight and with few cloudy days.”
“I would recommend this book to successful African American families in particular because there are no books to help us to understand what can go wrong in our families,” said Rosie Phillips Davis, Ph.D., ABPP. For more details and/or to purchase “Falling Through the Ceiling: Our ADHD Family Memoir” visit www.enabletables.com
