As millions of American parents report feeling utterly overwhelmed by stress, a leading children's mental health expert is calling for a shift in how families are supported, emphasizing that intervention must come before a parent reaches their breaking point.
According to the American Psychological Association, 48% of parents say their stress is completely overwhelming on most days, and another 41% report that their stress is so high they cannot function. This widespread crisis has prompted the U.S. Surgeon General to issue a national advisory declaring parental well-being a public health priority.
Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge, a children's mental health expert with over 30 years of clinical experience, is bringing this message to Orlando as a speaker at The Ounce of Prevention Fund of Florida and the 2026 Florida Prevention Convention. Her focus is on a simple but urgent question: Who is helping the parent before they reach their breaking point?
"We can't wait until a family is in crisis to decide they deserve support," says Dr. Roseann. "Prevention means reaching the parent while they're overwhelmed, not after they've reached their breaking point."
Dr. Roseann explains that when a parent and child are both stressed, their nervous systems can collide, escalating the situation. She advocates for a 'Regulation First®' approach, which teaches parents to regulate their own stress response before attempting to correct or guide their child. The framework emphasizes: Regulate, Connect, Correct.
The importance of supporting parents is not lost on organizations dedicated to prevention. The Ounce of Prevention Fund of Florida invests in programs to strengthen families before problems require intensive intervention, and Healthy Families Florida works directly with parents facing significant life challenges.
Dr. Roseann argues that "Supporting parents isn't 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 stresses that this does not imply parental stress causes child abuse, but rather that prevention includes ensuring parents don't have to wait until they're drowning to receive help.
Dr. Roseann's message is timely: "We're very good at responding once families are already struggling. The opportunity in prevention is to move upstream. What can we give that parent today that helps the next hard moment go differently?"
She also points out that traditional parenting advice often starts with behavior, but her approach looks at the nervous system driving that behavior. "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."
These principles are also the foundation of her forthcoming book, The Dysregulated Kid: The Parenting Playbook for Helping Your Child Find Calm in a Chaotic World, set to be published by Page Two Books on September 22, 2026. The book offers practical tools for everyday moments of dysregulation.
"Parents don't need more blame," says Dr. Roseann. "They need a simple way to understand what's happening beneath the behavior and know what to do next."
More information about the book and pre-orders is available at dysregulatedkid.com.
