The statistics are stark: 48% of parents report that their stress is completely overwhelming on most days, and another 41% say their stress is so high they can't function, according to the American Psychological Association. This has become such a significant public health issue that the U.S. Surgeon General issued a national advisory on the mental health and well-being of parents and caregivers, calling it a public health priority.
Children's mental health expert Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge is asking a critical question: Who helps the parent before they reach their breaking point? She will address this in Orlando at two events focused on strengthening families, early intervention, and child abuse prevention, including the 2026 Florida Prevention Convention themed 'Stronger Families, Stronger Florida.'
Dr. Roseann emphasizes that prevention must start before a family is in crisis. 'We can't wait until a family is in crisis to decide they deserve support,' she says. 'Prevention means reaching the parent while they're overwhelmed, not after they've reached their breaking point.'
When an overwhelmed parent meets an overwhelmed child, the result can be a collision of two dysregulated nervous systems. Dr. Roseann explains that when a child is dysregulated, it can activate the parent's stress response, and vice versa. Traditional parenting advice often focuses on what to say or what consequence to give, but Dr. Roseann argues that regulation must come first. Her Regulation First® framework teaches parents to understand the nervous system beneath the behavior, regulate before reacting, reconnect, and then move into correction or problem-solving.
The goal isn't to create perfectly calm parents, Dr. Roseann notes. Parents are human and will get frustrated. Prevention is about giving them another option when they feel themselves getting close to the edge.
Supporting parents is a key part of prevention, according to organizations like the Ounce of Prevention Fund of Florida, which invests in programs to strengthen families before problems require intensive intervention. Healthy Families Florida works directly with parents facing significant challenges, building on strengths and empowering through education and community support.
Parents today are juggling work pressure, financial strain, lack of sleep, children's emotional needs, school demands, and the invisible mental load of keeping a family functioning. Then they're expected to remain calm when their child isn't. Dr. Roseann stresses that supporting parents is not separate from supporting children. When parents have tools to understand their own stress response and their child's nervous system, the whole family is strengthened.
This doesn't mean parental stress causes child abuse, nor that every overwhelmed family is in crisis. But prevention includes ensuring parents don't have to wait until they're drowning to receive support.
Dr. Roseann's message is that prevention starts before the breaking point. It starts when a parent recognizes their own stress cup is overflowing, when adults understand that a child's behavior may signal overwhelm rather than disrespect, and when families feel supported to ask for help before problems become emergencies.
With more than 30 years of clinical experience, Dr. Roseann has seen many parents arrive exhausted, having tried sticker charts, consequences, rewards, and reasoning. Often, the missing piece isn't effort; it's that they've been taught to start with behavior rather than the nervous system driving it. '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.'
This approach is at the heart of her forthcoming book, 'The Dysregulated Kid: The Parenting Playbook for Helping Your Child Find Calm in a Chaotic World,' published by Page Two Books on September 22, 2026. The book introduces strategies like the Love Pause® and CALMS Protocol® to help parents move from reacting to understanding what their child's brain and body need first.
'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.' At a time when nearly half of parents feel completely overwhelmed, these tools are about strengthening families. 'Every hard moment isn't a crisis,' she adds. 'But every hard moment is an opportunity to change what happens next.'
