When Flexible Thinking Causes Family Clashes
In families, disagreements are normal, especially in big households where lots of personalities live under one roof. But when someone struggles with flexible thinking, those everyday disagreements can quickly turn into constant clashes.
Flexible thinking is the ability to adapt when things change, to compromise, or to see things from someone else’s perspective. For people with ADHD or autism, this can be very difficult. Once they’ve decided on something or pictured how it should go, letting go of that idea feels impossible. To everyone else, it might look like being argumentative or stubborn. But to them, it feels like the only way that makes sense.
What This Looks Like in a Large Family
When you live in a big family, there are always shifting plans, compromises, and different opinions bouncing around. For someone who struggles with flexibility, this environment can feel like a constant battle.
Here are some everyday examples:
- Meal times: The family decides to swap dinner, maybe spaghetti instead of pizza. Most people accept the change, but one person insists, “No, you said pizza. It has to be pizza.” A small change escalates into a full-blown row.
- Day trips: Plans for the park are cancelled because of bad weather. Everyone else accepts going to the cinema instead, but the child or adult who can’t shift their thinking spends the whole day upset, saying, “This isn’t fair, I wanted the park. It’s ruined now.”
- Household routines: The rest of the family adapts to new rules as children grow older. But one person digs in: “No, this is how we’ve always done it.” They get stuck in the old way and won’t consider alternatives.
- Chores: Siblings argue because one insists that the dishwasher must be loaded a certain way. They become angry if others don’t follow the exact method they’ve decided on.
- Family discussions: In a house full of voices, conversations move quickly. One person latches onto a single viewpoint and won’t budge. The more others try to explain or suggest another way, the more opinionated and fixed they become, arguments spiral, and the atmosphere feels tense.
When It’s Not Just One Person
It’s easy to think that only one family member struggles with flexibility, but ADHD and autism are strongly genetic. If one person in the family is neurodivergent, there’s a good chance others are too. And that means different levels of flexible thinking all colliding under one roof.
In a large family, this might look like:
- One child who absolutely refuses to change plans.
- Another who can just about adapt but feels resentful and complains the whole time.
- A parent who also struggles with flexibility and finds themselves locked in the same rigid patterns as their child.
- Siblings who get frustrated because they can’t understand why their brother or sister won’t “just go with the flow.”
The result? Constant disagreements. Not because anyone is deliberately being difficult, but because several brains are wired to hold onto routines, rules, or opinions tightly, and when those inflexible styles clash, family life feels like it’s always “going off.”
Living in the Middle of It All
In a large family, these clashes aren’t once in a while, they can feel like they’re happening all the time. Someone always disagrees. Someone always insists, “That’s not right.” Someone always refuses to back down.
To the rest of the family, it feels exhausting and relentless. To the person struggling with flexibility, it feels like nobody understands how important their perspective is.
And when more than one family member has difficulty thinking flexibly, the arguments can feel endless, because each person is firmly locked in their own way of seeing things.
Recognising this is key. Constant family arguments don’t always mean bad behaviour, disrespect, or poor parenting. Sometimes they’re the result of several neurodivergent brains, each with its own limits around flexibility, colliding in the same busy household.
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