Ive noticed latley one trait that can be either present in the adhd person, or in the non-adhd person, but when gone unrecognized can wreak havoc on a relationship with spouse and kids alike. 

what is it.....ever get that feeling that you always get so frustrated with the fact that people wont just listen and listen to your lead when you try to either work together, or ask them to do something. 

When was the last time you asked your son to go out and do something, wheather cleaning up the garage, putting something away, or to help you with the dishes for example.  

of course you had this thought ( more of a sense) of how something should happen in your mind ideally, to be most efficient or get things done the best way.

that person, if your about to work together - you see them start doing something that dosent go with this sense of how to most efficiently do something in your head.

what do you do, most likley, you get a bit nervous or agitated. - raising your voice ussually. 

**** right their...as soon as you raised your voice, the whole process of working together or forging some sort of positive mood has been Thrown out the window.  

Now how is that other person to react when this happens - if they have adhd - good potential for them to lash back (we tend to have poor impulse control for things like this). though even if not adhd, that other person can really get turned off, be hurt..have their own sense of energy and purpose sucked out.  

suddenly you have caused their stress response and yours to kick in.  

Is what you have asked some one to do - or are working on with them likley to get done to the quality you want, or at all by them. 

at this point, i would say no, but even if it is - the overall effect is negative for the rest of the day.   as the stress response has been activated.  What this does  - causes you to eat (emotinally eat, we all do this)  (sit down and veg in front of the tv, to burn off steam)  ( decreases not only the productivity of what you get done, but of that other person)    increases stress hormones and activates a persons limbic system, theyby increasing impulsivness - something not good in adhd families/relationships. 

So might i return to what started this sequence of events - you had an idea, or more of a sense, of "HOW" you wanted something done.   Some one either did it but didnt complete it on their own because they ran into a problem you didnt address, or somebody started doing something to start a project you were working on together that didnt jive with that idea, or sense, of how something should be done in your head. 

* heres where the adhd part comes in - were not the best at task switching - and say were about to do something that would requier getting serval different things done in a certain sequcence ( like clearing the table, rinsing the dishes, loading the dishwasher, wiping the counter etc..for example)    You start to get nervous..or anxious..your voice raises and you set off the whole stress response that hurts you both in the long run.   your productivity for the rest of the day, and your relationship.

how can this be avoided....and trust me...it takes a bit of a transformation, as ive realized this sort of habit that cuases this to happen can be hard to break, but once you realize it, you can only move forward. 

this tends to happen as the parts of our mind responsible for that insight about how we want things to happen, and our ability to clearly articulate everything to the other person are two seperate parts that are not neccesarily always working together perfectly.   as when one is activated, the other is not so much...and vice versa, and translating one insight to more than few simple words is hard at times. 

but its imperitive to practice pausing and letting something be for a second to actually prevent from getting nervous and raising ones voice.  as this only makes things worse.  then upon pausing - to talk in such a way to articlate the whole picture to somebody - the intentions of what you want to happen, including why something is happening, and the final outcome.  Do this, you avoid the stressful sequence of events that could potentially happen.  

dont, and things hit the fan. 

also, for the adhder who may not be good at switching tasks without a boundry or direct reason ( lets be honest, "because i told you so" has never been an effective reason) 

but as you sit and try to collect your thoughts, gently walk up and put your PALM on their shoulder and ask them to pause for a few moments to help you with something else.  

it might just give you the moment to think through something outloud that you need to in order to articulate your self correctly. 

Im writing this as ive seen this sort of situation happen too many times in my adhd family ( 4 of the 6 of us are adhd)  and have seen it cause so many problems, and it wasnt till i got older and had a chance to run an area at a summer camp with my own staff that i found my self exhibitng the same behaviors a bit.  It hit me how much i did this without thinking as it was more of a learned behavior.  but once i learned from my mistakes that in the end - how it gets done - isnt always so important - finding ways to include more hands in something even if its not always efficient will produce more cheerful service is really the way to go.  

its just a bit frustrating to learned this on my own but then still come back to a family full of members who havent had a situation where they learned this. 

if their are questions or clarifications, please make a comment.