Forgetfulness, Conflicts, and the Pop-Up Window: Challenges ADHDers Face In Friendships

Dr Connie Buckingham's session at the 2026 Victorian ADHD Conference tackled something that doesn't get enough airtime: the friendship challenges that come with ADHD, and what we can do about them.

She covered three things: what the common friendship challenges are for ADHDers, why they happen, and how we can help as parents, partners, friends, and educators.

If you've ever watched your child struggle to keep a friendship, or wondered why social situations seem to take so much more energy for yourself than others, this one's worth a read.

The Four Challenges ADHDers Face In Friendships

Connie broke down four challenges ADHDers face in friendships that show up repeatedly in social situations.

1. Zoning out mid-conversation

You're in a conversation, and suddenly you're not. Your brain left without telling you, and now you're trying to come back in, look present, and work out what you missed. The social implication is that you're uninterested or don't care, but the brain didn't hear it in the first place. This happens because ADHD means difficulties with attention. It's not a choice.

2. Enthusiastic interrupting

ADHDers cut people off, talk over them, and jump in mid-sentence. Others read it as rude, frustrating, or self-focused, but internally, they're engrossed in the story, making connections to their own life, and like a pop-up window on a computer screen... boom! A connection appears. If they don't say it right now, they might forget it entirely. It's about difficulties with impulse control, inhibitory control, and a deep mistrust of working memory.

3. Big emotions

The excitement is loud with jumping, too-tight hugs, volume turned up to eleven, or, when something goes wrong, the anger or anxiety is intense and overwhelming. If the big emotion isn't matched by the people around them, it gets labelled as "overthinking" or "overreacting." That leads to shame, fear of rejection, people pleasing, and masking. It's "less taxing" in the moment to manage the impulses, but the exhaustion catches up later.

4. Forgetfulness

Muddying up events, times, details, and plans. Getting the day wrong, the time wrong, the place wrong. This is all about planning and executive functioning (attention, regulation, working memory), and it takes a toll on friendships when it looks like you just don't care enough to remember.

Connie's key point: if a task requires executive functioning, ADHDers are in their blind spot. That doesn't mean they can't plan, organise, and coordinate - they can, through hyperfocus, but it's got to be of interest to them.

"Our self-worth, self-compassion, understanding, growth, and finding good workarounds comes from your understanding, compassion, and support."

Friendship Styles

This was the framework I wished I'd had growing up, and one I'll be using with my own kid. Connie presented four friendship styles, framed as choices rather than deficits:

1. Group: Several people, big-group fun and sometimes big-group fights.
   

2. Bouncy Ball: You like variety and find groups hard to manage, so you float between a group, a duo, or your own company, depending on the day.
   

3. Two Peas in a Pod: A duo driven by shared interest.
   

4. Just Me: For years, Connie got referrals from parents whose children "didn't want friends" or preferred their own company. Now, "Just Me" is recognised as a valid, important choice. Classroom time can be so overwhelming that when free time comes, it's the child's opportunity to zone out and recharge. It's not a red flag. It's a need. It's what I chose as a child, and where I was immediately transported back to via her explanation.

Image Credit: Social Stencil

These styles aren't fixed. Someone might be "Just Me" at school, Two Peas in a Pod with a cousin on the weekend, and in a Group through an extracurricular activity. The style shifts across contexts, depending on executive function, energy, and what's happened that day.

What Makes a Friendship Work (or Flop)

Connie offered a simple filter:

• If you're in a friendship because of fear, fame, or fortune, the friendship is likely to flop.

• If you're in a friendship because of company, care, and common interests, the friendship is likely to float and fly.
  

Common interest is the best place to start for kids who want to create connections.

...and adults, really. Unless this is Real Housewives of Melbourne.

Understanding Conflict: The Drama Triangle

For navigating conflict, Connie introduced the Drama Triangle, which is where three dysfunctional roles people fall into:

1. The Lion (aggressor) who raises their voice, forcing opinions.

2. The Mouse who becomes small pulls away and loses their voice.

3. The Magpie who swoops in and tries to fix it.
   

Depending on how a conflict unfolds, you might switch between these roles. The framework helps unpack what's happening, gives children language for the dynamic, and offers insight into their own patterns. Simple, visual, and something kids can hold onto when things get heated.

What I'm Taking From This

I loved how Connie normalised the full spectrum of social preference. Not every kid needs a big group or ten best friends. Some kids need to sit alone at lunch, and that's not a failure, but rather a recharge.

The pop-up window metaphor for interrupting is something I'll use forever. It reframes a behaviour that gets so much judgment into something understandable and even endearing. They're not being rude. Their brain just made a connection it doesn't trust itself to hold. I'll give myself some grace next time.

Dr Connie Buckingham's Social Stencil resources offer classrooms and clinics practical, neuro-affirming tools for navigating friendships, conflicts, and social skills.