As nearly half of American parents report feeling completely overwhelmed by stress on most days, children’s mental health expert Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge is bringing a urgent message to Orlando: support for parents must come before they reach their breaking point, not after.
According to the American Psychological Association, 48% of parents say their stress is completely overwhelming on most days, and 41% report that their stress is so high they can’t function. The U.S. Surgeon General has issued a national advisory calling parental well-being a public health priority, underscoring the severity of the crisis.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge, a licensed therapist and Board Certified in Neurofeedback with more than 30 years of experience, will speak at two events focused on strengthening families, early intervention, and child abuse prevention: The Ounce of Prevention Fund of Florida and the 2026 Florida Prevention Convention, themed “Stronger Families, Stronger Florida.”
“We can’t wait until a family is in crisis to decide they deserve support,” says Dr. Capanna-Hodge. “Prevention means reaching the parent while they’re overwhelmed, not after they’ve reached their breaking point.”
Her message centers on the concept of “Regulation First,” a framework she developed that teaches parents and professionals to understand the nervous system beneath behavior, regulate before reacting, reconnect, and then move into correction or guidance. The approach is designed to help parents when they feel themselves getting close to that edge.
“When a child is dysregulated, their stress response can activate the parent’s stress response, and vice versa,” Dr. Capanna-Hodge explains. “Before you know it, nobody in that moment has easy access to the calm, flexible thinking needed to solve the problem.”
Traditional parenting advice often focuses on what the adult should say or what consequence should come next. But Dr. Capanna-Hodge believes regulation must come first. “When a child’s brain is in a stress response, more correcting isn’t necessarily the first thing that brain needs,” she says. “We regulate so the brain can do what we’re asking it to do.”
She emphasizes that supporting parents is not separate from supporting children. “When we give parents tools to understand their own stress response and their child’s nervous system, we’re strengthening the entire family,” she says. “Prevention is about giving them another option when they feel themselves getting close to that edge.”
Prevention organizations like Healthy Families Florida have long recognized the importance of strengthening families before challenges become crises. The Ounce of Prevention Fund of Florida invests in programs designed to improve outcomes for children and preserve and strengthen families before problems require more intensive intervention.
Dr. Capanna-Hodge will also discuss her forthcoming book, The Dysregulated Kid: The Parenting Playbook for Helping Your Child Find Calm in a Chaotic World, which applies her Regulation First framework. The book offers practical tools for everyday moments of dysregulation, including the Love Pause®, CALMS Protocol®, and 10-Minute Resets.
“Parents don’t need more blame,” says Dr. Capanna-Hodge. “They need a simple way to understand what’s happening beneath the behavior and know what to do next.”
The stakes are high. With nearly half of parents feeling overwhelmed, supporting them before they reach a breaking point is not just about easing stress—it’s about strengthening families and preventing crises. As Dr. Capanna-Hodge says, “Every hard moment isn’t a crisis. But every hard moment is an opportunity to change what happens next.”
