So … You Are Tired of Being a Lame Duck

As your family grows, parents notice the differences between their children. Parents often comment about the differences in their children and how this has made their family life interesting. It is normal for your children to be unique. This does not mean that your family will not have problems to overcome. The Creator of this World allowed us to be unique by giving us the ability to choose right from wrong. Your children may be unique, but their learning will follow a pattern. It is different with step families. One of the first puzzling things that a step parent notices in their step children is that his or her step children are not unique. All your step children have the same layers of dysfunction. Your step children may look different, but all of your step children and their families have the same behavior. If you look at the other side of the step family which includes your biological children, they have the same layers of dysfunction and behavior, too. Step children are coerced or feel obligated to follow a part of their remaining family that seems most advantageous to them. Uniqueness is not allowed in step families. Personalities cannot be displayed with a parent married to a step parent. Your children’s personality and identity do not develop because they are coerced into following a sibling. This sibling may have adult attention deficit disorder. Most usually, step children do not follow their surviving parent. They follow a sibling who has split from his or her biological parent. This sibling is the one that will preserve the integrity of the family. By not remaining in step with a parent, a child loses an important key in his life–his agency, the ability to stay on task. This behavior creates great gulfs in their family as well as your family. Anyone marrying into this step family has to follow this dominating personality. They experience the same gulfs. It is difficult for parents and step parents to try to blend a family or a step family with double or triple the number of children with an Attention Deficit Disorder and a spouse, and ex-spouses with adult attention deficit disorders. In the chaos, parents or step parents will be accused of having an attention deficit disorder in spite of parents doing well in school, obtaining an education, working several jobs for their family or step family. Parents feel like lame ducks with their children and step children, grandchildren and step grandchildren. Attention deficit disorders are not just problems with learning. Attention deficit disorders accumulate in layers and affect all aspects of our behavior. These layers affect every aspect of our learning–what we learn, how well we learn, and our desire to learn. Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity sounds like individuals have no choice in the matter. We are stuck with what our body decrees for us over time. We are stuck with what someone who has an Attention Deficit Disorder decrees for us. Though we may be at different levels of intelligence and performance, humans are not stuck with impulses, reflexes, or agendas and their consequences. We have our free agency, the ability to stay on task. We can choose to stay on task in spite of hurt feelings, stress, illness, and fatigue.