In my family learning disabilities are so widespread we joke that "typical" kids are "special." Needing special education services, that's "normal."

Three of my four nieces and nephews traveled, or are traveling, through public schools on IEPs (school speak for Individual Education Plans — the annual goals set by parents and school officials for kids with learning differences.)

We don't stop at your standard disorders either, oh no. Way too simple. These kids muck it up by being "twice exceptional" — meaning they qualify for both talented and gifted programs and special services.

Me, I'm about as ADD as they co... Look, something shiny!

And I have visual processing stuff I couldn't begin to explain within the space of this blog. Or to even understand in the space of the 39 years I've lived it.

Last week I read a new study on the higher rate of divorce among parents of kids with ADHD.

It says parents of ADHD kids are twice as likely to divorce by the kids' eighth birthday. Says higher stress from parenting these kids leaks into communication among the adults. Everyone is more stressed. And angry. Confrontational and ready to bolt.

Makes sense. But there's one glaring flaw in the study.

The risk factors in this study don't include the impact of mom and/or dad's ADD/ADHD on the marriage. And guess what? Turns out the apple really does not fall far from the tree. Show me an ADHD kid and nine times out ten, I'll show you the parent they inherited from.

I don't question the impact raising hard kids has on a family. But how much of it is truly the stress of managing a special needs child and how much of it is the stress of managing their own special needs?

Sam and I split at the height of Roxie's behavioral problems — at four she was pushing and biting other kids. She wasn't the source of our troubles, living in the tension of our crap was hers.

Once the tension was gone, so was her aggression.

The thing about these kids is sensitivity. They see everything. ADHD is not a deficit of attention, it's a surplus. It's the ability notice EVERYTHING all at once, all the time.

If what they notice is constant bickering or tension, of course their behavior is chaos.

Where's the study that shows that cycle?