Int: …you mentioned brain so I’m quite interested in how you attribute cause if you do for it
Gill: personally I know there’s different research out there but I think it’s I know there’s a genetic link I’m not saying if your mum has it you have it but there’s I think that genes uhm and susceptibility to things like that play a part and I think uhm […] it’s definitely genetic Mick: what’s the expression? Bio-environmental?
Gill: it’s a developmental it’s a developmental uhm (tuts) disorder I can’t think of another word but it’s developmental
Mick: I think that’s that’s the nub of it but you know there’s things that you do … the environment they’re in can influence to what degree …
Gill: oh yeah absolutely and I think be… I think if we hadn’t managed certain behaviours or picked up on it as well I think he could have… his symptoms… he might be placed on the high end of the scale and I think
Mick: high level really at the top
Gill: yeah and I think that because he’s placed on the mild spectrum I really feel that’s …he’s got this anyway…he’s got this package he’s got the n…you know (laughs) the neurological side he’s got that…
Mick: the thing is…
Gill: but we help and from such an early age
Mick: I think …we must depend massively on the parents as well because you know some parents might might not be interested I mean I’m not saying that I’ve never been interested I’m very interested in his his I mean his upbringing and his uhm doing the best so I’m interested in ADHD from that point of view but if it wasn’t for G’s interest in the field in general we we wouldn’t be where we are and I think G’s been instrumental in really in his upbringing and I try to emulate what she does you know and…I mostly get it right […] but even without
understanding about what the condition is because as parents I mean even though I’m not interested in psychology because I want to get the best out of him and we see things working you know and I want him to have the best future he can have then then that makes a difference to his upbringing and his
reactions and his outbursts whereas if we didn’t care if we were just more interested in watching Coronation Street or whatever and let him get on with it then you know…
Gill: but I think parenting …
Mick: …we’d think he was a bad boy…
Gill: …is has a big influence
Alison: that’s really interesting you say that yeah […] so it’s …there’s a suggestion there that it’s a mix that yes, ADHD exists but it can be kind of …
Gill: amplified
Alison: amplified by parenting?
In Extract 15 aspects of the biological and psychosocial are both drawn upon by Gill and Mick to co-construct their account of ADHD. Gill, initially, draws upon distinct but very biological explanations for ADHD. She variously accounts for it in terms of there being a genetic link, it being a developmental disorder and her son having the neurological side of ADHD. Gill’s biological accounting resonates with Raflovich’s findings (2008:163) that parents deploy ‘various and sundry’ biological explanations in their descriptions of ADHD, reflecting the diverse biological accounts in the literature. Gill’s explanations hinge on certain key scientific words: genetic, developmental, neurological, but these explanations are not elaborated on in any detail. This simplified version of expert knowledge
provides an example of proto-professionalisation (Horton-Salway, 2004; Shaw, 2002); Gill has appropriated the biological lexicon and knowledge as her own. Mick also appropriates a scientific term to account for ADHD: bio-environmental and in doing so he introduces the potentially risky theme of the environment. So, in the first part of this extract, Gill and Mick account for ADHD in genetic,
developmental, neurological and bio-environmental terms, which could be
problematic; it being neither one thing nor another. However, Gill orients to this by describing her son’s situation as he’s got this package which permits the
collection of items within one category, in an even more simplified version of expert knowledge.
Both Gill and Mick draw on expert, professional language when accounting for the causes of ADHD, which further establishes their entitlement to make knowledge claims. However, the introduction of bio-environmental raises the potentially problematic issue of the environment to the discussion about causes of ADHD. In acknowledging the influence of the environment on ADHD, both the scientific explanation of ADHD and also Mick and Gill’s own position as parents could be threatened, especially, as they orient their explanation of environment to parental
influence. In this extract Mick and Gill manage to construct their own wider knowledge about ADHD without this prejudicing their position as good parents. Indeed, paradoxically, their acknowledgement of the impact of the environment, in fact, contributes, in this extract, to the construction of themselves as good parents. At first, although Mick acknowledges environmental influence, he begins his
account by stating clearly that Gill’s biological explanations offer the fullest account of ADHD that’s that’s the nub of it; clearly, he is not giving that up in favour of an environmental account. Initially, the impact of parenting is left vague as in the following statements: there’s things that you do…the environment they’re in
can influence to what degree… (Mick) and if we hadn’t managed certain behaviours and picked up on it as well (Gill) and but we help and from such an early age as well (Gill). This vagueness enables Mick and Gill to demonstrate
their awareness (or knowledge) of current debates on ADHD without making explicit what these debates might be. Additionally, their vagueness, enables them to interpret environmental influence in a way that is constructive for them. They go on to construct a clear account of how their parenting has impacted on their child. Crucially, their son’s ADHD remains as a given. Their parenting is not constructed as being responsible for this in any way. However, it is through their implied good parenting that the disorder was firstly recognised and then, successfully managed. Indeed, here, Gill constructs the impact of their parenting as having positive
outcomes for their son; had it not been for their parenting, his ADHD would be more severe I think if we hadn’t managed certain behaviours or picked up on
it as well I think he could have …his symptoms …he might be placed on the high end of the scale.
Mick develops this account of positive parental influence. He develops a
successful identification and subsequent management of ADHD. As with Gill’s account, not once is parental behaviour constructed as contributing to the
emergence of ADHD. Rather, the influence of parenting is constructed as vital with regards to recognising the disorder. As Mick says, he is interested in his son’s
upbringing and in doing the best […] if we didn’t care if we were just more interested in watching Coronation Street or whatever and let him get on with it then you know […] we’d think he was a bad boy. Here, Mick constructs two
categories of parents, those who are interested (as he and Gill are) and those who are not (those parents who watch Coronation Street). Mick suggests that it is good and interested parents who recognise and interpret their children’s behaviour as not simply ‘bad’ but as biological/medical.
This section highlights the flexibility with which repertoires can be drawn upon. In this case, the psychosocial repertoire is used, not to negate or undermine the scientific explanation for ADHD, but to acknowledge the interplay between biology and environment. Crucially, in this extract, the successful negotiation of this
interplay is constructed as being dependent on the skill of the parents. By constructing the complexity of ADHD, Mick and Gill not only demonstrate their wider, scientifically informed knowledge, which includes a potentially risky
environmental explanation, but, in so doing, they manage to successfully construct themselves as good parents (a theme which will be taken up in the following
chapters).
5.4 Summary
This chapter began by examining how parents’ descriptions of ADHD constructed it as a scientific reality. It argued that parents’ accounts of ADHD oriented to biological, specifically, brain and genetic explanations. Two ways of reifying the biological truth of ADHD were examined: first, the indexical construction of
abnormality in relation to normality and second, an account of the success of medication. The second part of the chapter examined how parents challenged and undermined sceptical views about the biological explanation of ADHD. Parents were shown to work up their own entitlement to epistemological warrant whilst undermining the warrant of people who held alternative views of ADHD. Parents’ resistance oriented to those alternative views that accounted for ADHD in terms of lack of discipline, poor parenting and just ‘normal’ naughtiness. The final section of this chapter showed how parents work up ADHD as a complex category. In doing this, parents demonstrate a wide and expert knowledge base, and manage to both maintain the scientific account of ADHD whilst acknowledging their own, positive parental influence.
The parents in this study orient to two distinct accounts of ADHD: A biological account (the biological repertoire), and, one which suggests the impact of environment on the psychology of the child (the psychosocial repertoire). The availability of these contrary linguistic repertoires suggests an ideological tension between two competing versions of reality (Billig et al., 1988; Gilbert and Mulkay, 1984). Each repertoire provides a very distinct account of a social category, and so, performs distinct rhetorical work (Billig, 2001). These findings support those of Horton-Salway (2011) with regard to media representations of ADHD. As she argues, in the case of ADHD, the repertoires offer distinct moral interpretations of the relationship between ADHD and parenting. It is therefore, perhaps,
unsurprising that most parents work to construct the biological explanation of ADHD as the true one, which supports other research in the field (Horton- Salway, 2011; Bennett, 2007; Singh, 2004, 2003, 2002a; Malacrida, 2001). This biological repertoire, potentially, makes relevant very different subject positions for parents from those made available by the psychosocial repertoire, and both, in turn,
chapters examine how parents orient to these subject positions, Chapters 6 and 7 look at the gendered subject positions made relevant by and for mothers and Chapter 8, the subject positions made relevant by and for fathers.