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Why Your Child Is Dysregulated: Nervous System Regulation, Screen Time, and the CALMS Protocol with Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge | E178

September 14, 2026·44 min
Episode Description from the Publisher

🎒 Back-to-school season can bring changing routines, increased stress, new exposures, and added demands on the whole family. Support your family’s health this season with Richmond Integrative &amp; Functional Medicine’s Back-to-School 2026 resources.Back-to-School 2026: https://richmondfunctionalmedicine.com/lp/back-to-school-2026/In this episode of Made for Health, Dr. Aaron Hartman welcomes back Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge, a leading expert in emotional and behavioral dysregulation with more than 30 years of experience helping children and families. Their conversation explores what happens when the nervous system becomes chronically overwhelmed—and why addressing behavior alone may miss what is actually driving a child’s struggles.Dr. Roseann explains dysregulation as difficulty moving effectively between states of stress and calm. When the nervous system’s “stress cup” keeps filling without enough opportunities to release that stress, children and adults can remain chronically activated. That activation may show up through anxiety, emotional outbursts, attention difficulties, shutdowns, impulsivity, sleep problems, or other physical and mental health challenges.Dr. Hartman and Dr. Roseann also take a close look at screen time and device dysregulation. Rather than framing technology as inherently bad, Dr. Roseann emphasizes the importance of boundaries, especially because children can have difficulty disengaging once they are deeply absorbed in stimulating digital content.The conversation then moves into the heart of Dr. Roseann’s work: helping families regulate the nervous system first. Nutrition, gut health, magnesium, neurofeedback, PEMF, and other tools may all have a role, but she stresses that lasting change also requires consistent daily practices that help reduce nervous-system activation and create greater capacity for stress.Key Topics CoveredWhat emotional and nervous-system dysregulation can look like in childrenWhy people can appear highly functional while living in chronic fight, flight, or freezeThe “stress cup” and why accumulated stress mattersADHD, anxiety, OCD, PANS/PANDAS, sensory challenges, and dysregulationDevice dysregulation and screen-time boundariesWhy smartphones and short-form content can be difficult for children to disengage fromWhy simply removing one physical stressor may not fully regulate the nervous systemNutrition, magnesium, gut health, mold, and nervous-system supportBig-T trauma, little-t trauma, and chronic everyday stressSympathetic nervous-system activationWhy consistency matters more than searching for one “magic” interventionBreathwork, somatic exercises, Tai Chi, prayer, art, and other daily regulation practicesNeurofeedback, PEMF, and brain-based toolsPolyvagal theory and vagus-nerve regulationWhy parents need to regulate themselves before helping a dysregulated childCo-dysregulation versus co-regulationGenerational patterns and emotional regulation within familiesThe CALMS Dysregulation Protocol®Regulation First Parenting®Dr. Roseann’s book, The Dysregulated KidIn This Episode, You Will Learn✅ Why dysregulation is about the nervous system’s ability to move between stress and calm✅ Why chronic stress can affect the nervous system even when there has not been one major traumatic event✅ Why correcting behavior may be ineffective when a child is already highly dysregulated✅ How technology and device use can add another layer of stimulation for children✅ Why supplements or advanced therapies alone may not replace daily nervous-system regulation✅ How simple practices such as breathwork, movement, art, prayer, Tai Chi, and somatic exercises can become part of a daily regulation routine✅ Why parents’ nervous systems influence their children through verbal and nonverbal cues✅ How families can shift from co-dysregulation to co-regulation✅ Why Dr. Roseann believes parents need to stop personalizing a child’s dysregulated behavior✅ How the CALMS Dysregulation Protocol® gives families a practical framework for responding differentlyFollow Dr. Aaron Hartman and Richmond Integrative &amp; Functional Medicine🌐 Website: https://richmondfunctionalmedicine.com/🎒 Back-to-School 2026: <a href="ht

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