The long-term impact of the pandemic on children’s mental health

001 Tara Hunkin:
This is My Child Will Thrive and I'm your host, Tara Hunkin, Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, Certified GAPS Practitioner, Restorative Wellness Practitioner, and mother. I'm thrilled to share with you the latest information, tips, resources, and tools to help you on the path to recovery for your child. With ADHD, Autism, Sensory Processing Disorder, or Learning Disabilities.

My own experiences with my daughter combined with as much training as I can get my hands on, research I can dig into and conferences I can attend have helped me to develop systems and tools for parents like you who feel overwhelmed, trying to help their children. So sit back as I share another great topic to help you on your journey. A quick disclaimer, before we get started,

My Child Will Thrive is not a substitute for working with a qualified healthcare practitioner. The information provided on this podcast is not intended to diagnose or treat your child. Please consult your healthcare practitioner before implementing any information or treatments that you have learned about on this podcast. There are many gifted, passionate, and knowledgeable practitioners with hundreds. If not thousands of hours of study and clinical experience available to help guide you.

Part of our goal is to give you the knowledge and tools you need to effectively advocate for your child so that you don't blindly implement each new treatment that comes along. No one knows your child better than you. No one knows your child's history like you do or can better. Judge. What is normal or abnormal for your child? The greatest success in recovery comes from the parent being informed and asking the right questions and making the best decisions for their child in coordination with a team of qualified practitioners in different areas of specialty.

Now on with the show today's podcast is sponsored by the autism, ADHD and sensory processing disorder summit. In order to learn more about the summit and to sign up for free, please go to mychildwillthrive.com/summit.

2:07 Tara Hunkin:
Hi, everyone. I want to welcome you back to the My Child Will Thrive Podcast. I am actually really grateful. I actually, the word today to have with me, Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge. I met Dr. Roseann at a conference a couple of years ago. Oh gosh. It'd be probably more than a couple of years ago and just have loved the work that she's done. But in particular, right now, she has created a resource, a new book that I think is going to be really helpful to everybody out there.

And what we're going to be talking about today is a longterm impact of the pandemic on our children's mental health, which is a really, really important topic. And I think that we can all agree at this point in time that we need to start paying, if we aren't already, we've got to start paying attention to this really closely and do everything we can to help the kids along as we continue through this,

but just a little bit more about Dr. Roseann. She is a mental health trailblazer laser and the founder of the Global Institute of Children's Mental Health. And she's a media expert who is changing the way we view and treat children's mental health. Her work has helped thousands reverse the most challenging conditions, including ADHD, anxiety, mood disorders, Lyme, PANS/PANDAS using proven holistic therapies.

And she is often featured very often, especially in this past year on dozens of media outlets, including Fox, CBS, NBC Forbes, Parents Magazine, and New York Times. So I am, like I said, I actually, I was going to say excited, but I'm super grateful that I have the opportunity to talk to you today, Dr. Roseann, because this is such an important and timely, unfortunately timely topic that we need to talk about today.

4:07: Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge:
Well, I'm grateful that we are having this conversation because every parent is worried about their kid and we should be worried about our kid and we're going to dive into what are the things they should be looking for and what they can do to really try to be as proactive as possible and if your kid is struggling,what should you do?

4:30 Tara Hunkin:
Yeah, so, well, let's, let's talk about that. Let's start right from the beginning. What do you feel given, what we're dealing with right now, the long-term impact of the pandemic is going to be on our children?

4:42 Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge:
Yeah, so I think first of all, every kid is different and some kids have better coping skills, built-in resiliency, developed resiliency, because it's a skill that can be developed and so not, everybody's going to be impacted in the same way. With that being said, what we know from research, survey research, here in the United States, Asia and Europe, we already see that there's a greater rate of depression, particularly amongst teenagers. And there's about a 50{4537a52abafa24f75931b694e3f6d1d9b0beb5896e18e49b3141987b78b41d96} rate of depression for family members, including kids, if they had somebody in their family that had COVID. As well as in Asia, which is way ahead of us in the pandemic, we have lots of research that's showing the same kind of things. So we know that isolation, reduced physical activity, hello, terrible in many places, virtual learning experiences. And we can dive into that.

5:53 Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge:
This is all culminating into a perfect storm of difficulty for our kids. And on top of that, parents are struggling, right? So we know from the APA (American Psychological Association) does a survey every year, stress in America, American parents. And I think this is probably across the globe, but this is the research we have. 70{4537a52abafa24f75931b694e3f6d1d9b0beb5896e18e49b3141987b78b41d96} of parents in the United States are experiencing significantly more stress than the year before due to the pandemic parenting and educational components that are affecting their life at this time.

So we have a lot of factors kind of happening for our kids right now. And we should be concerned. I don't think we need research, but being the research nerd, I like to talk about it because we shouldn't just assume something's going to happen, we also should never ignore. And I want parents to know what the signs are and know where to start in helping their kids because we all need help right now.

7:01 Tara Hunkin:
Yeah. I mean, we were talking about this before we started to record today, but I think that we all are having these conversations with our friends and our girlfriends or our family members about not only as you said, what our kids are going through, which, as again, as you said, it's the perfect storm. I mean, we talk about, especially for brain health, getting out in nature, getting exercise, staying away from screens and then having that social interaction is so important.

We know that for longterm brain health as well, in terms of that's one of the leading factors of things like Dementia and Alzheimer's is just social isolation. So it is kind of crazy right now that we've been put in a situation where we're doing inadvertently, not intentionally for reasons that we're doing all these things that are really making life challenging for all of our parents and the parents that are listening today are likely, already have children, at least one child that's struggling to begin with. So it really does make these problems even more obvious.

8:21 Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge::
Oh, it's a definite exacerbation. And you know, what's so fascinating. I do have a small sub segment of my special needs kids that I work with who are actually thriving for different reasons with virtual learning and I'm saying it's small.

But the majority of kids, I mean, I have kids that I'm seeing that never had an issue with focus or doing work on time and for a variety of reasons, but mostly because of the poor quality of the delivery of educational instruction, with a lack of an ability to ask your professor for help, you have to email and things like that. And a lack of structure and a lack of structured exercise.

Some of my kids do so amazing with that routine structure of sports. It's how they might have a borderline case of ADHD or anxiety. And it's how they really thrive and are able to do really well. And it's so tough to replicate those things, not impossible at home, but it really requires vigilance.

9:30 Tara Hunkin:
Yeah. So, well, let's talk a little bit about, we've been talking, you've been mentioning things like depression, stress, anxiety - what do we want to be looking for? What's the difference between all those things and what are the symptoms that parents should be looking for that they need to identify so they can take action?

9:47 Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge:
So first of all, stress is a normal thing. Okay. And we have a system, it's called the Autonomic Nervous System, and it's designed to manage stress. When that sucker is working good, your body can have stress and respond. It can go from that relaxed parasympathetic to the stress state, which is sympathetic dominant, and get up there, And then it can come back down and regulate.

But when you have chronic stress, when you have clinical issues like anxiety, depression, OCD, PANS/PANDAS, a physical problem, your autonomic nervous system starts to be in a high stress hyperactivated state. It goes into the sympathetic, stressed out state all the time. And what does that mean? We're going to talk about what it looks like, but it means that your nervous system is going to start over responding to things.

Normal stressors, happy stressors, uncomfortable stressors, and it becomes harder to regulate your system. The more stressed your nervous system is, the more likely it is to respond to benign stimuli or minor stressors. And there's only three responses. When you get to maximum capacity, there's only three physiological responses that can happen: fight flight or freeze. So normal stress - you have something that happens.

Maybe you get upset, maybe you react, maybe your heart rate goes up. Then you go back down. What does chronic stress look like? It looks like maybe you have a prolonged stressor in your life, AKA the pandemic. And what becomes the point that it becomes a clinical issue, whether it's anxiety, depression, OCD, some, some clinical mental health issue?

11:30 Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge:
Really the definition is it is interfering with their functioning in some way. So it's interfering in your relationships with others. It's interfering in your job. It's interfering in your work and it's gotta be significant. And it can't be like, Oh, a little bit here and there. Somebody with OCD, we joke about OCD all the time.

I do a lot of work with OCD, but you're an hour more a day if you're having obsessive thoughts or compulsive behaviors, right? That's a significant amount of time. It's not like I like to keep things orderly and I can move on from it. No, you're spending an hour a day worrying, obsessing. Did I close the door? Is this going to happen?

What's going to happen when I don't do this? And so that's really, really critical. And what are signs and symptoms you need to be looking for in kids of all ages? And this is adults too, but let's just focus on kids. You want to look for behavioral signs. The language of children is behaviors.

And that means they're going to show you physical issues like belly aches, gastrointestinal things like diarrhea or constipation or vomiting. I can't even tell you Tara, how many kids I work with who are very high functioning, regularly vomit. And we're not talking, eating disorders, we're talking stress, vomiting, nausea, things like that. You're going to look for sleep disturbances.

You're going to look for a change. And I think that's what people are noticing in the pandemic is there's kids who were happy, easy to get along with, all of a sudden are cranky and don't want to leave their room. There's levels of this and in terms of developmental appropriateness, right.

13:11 Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge:
I just got a kid who got on the other side of the teenagers. He's 16. Thank you, Lord Jesus. And he started to get his wits about him again. for 12 to 15, it was rough going and he has PANS. So it was even, it's always been rough, but I'm saying it's the best now ever.

So they're developmentally appropriate because they do want to go in their room and, and they might tell you to F off once in a while. It doesn't mean they're gonna never go to college or be a horrible person. This is just what happens. It's what we do when it happens. And we get kids to

regulate. So you're going to look for those signs and symptoms. You're going to look for differences. And you're also going to listen to your mom voice. According to research, 2019 NAMI, it takes on average from the first onset of a mental health symptom to when you get appropriate help - on average is 11 years.

And I know that like a freaky statistic for people, I'm going to tell you that's real. That is so real. People are coming to me and I wish I could say they saw a couple of providers. I'm going to say most people who get to me have seen 10 or more providers. And sometimes it's even pretty simple issues, but a lot of times it's that we have to stop using grades as a benchmark for mental health. They're using those grades, thinking about the functionality, my kid is doing really well in school so they can't have anxiety, depression, OCD, suicidal thoughts, whatever is going on with them, an eating disorder because they think they're doing well in school. And really the reality is that structure and routine that school provides can keep kids very emotionally healthy.

15:05 Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge:
And this is why we're seeing such a decline in kids is so complex and layered. But those are the things parents need to look for in and nobody should ever ignore one of those signs. Nobody regrets getting help. They only regret when they don't.

I think that's so true. I think it is really important to try to remember, we have to go into the wayback machine, to remember what was going on with our kids before this all happened, because it is almost hard to remember now a year into this, how things were before. And also like, as you just said you have a child that just sort of bridges that gap of a certain age, developmental age, and you're going to see changes from that. So I think we're all kind of juggling, "Is it the developmental age, is what's going on right now?"

So you're second guessing, but you really can't go wrong with the mom gut. We only go wrong when we ignore it, Tara. And we give our power, we ask the teacher, is there something wrong? And they say, no, but your mom gut says, hell yes, there's a problem. And again, these people with mental health issues, regardless of their age, almost everybody's pretty darn functioning.

You know, it only is when things get real bad that kids don't get out of their bed or they refuse to go to school or those kinds of things. It's the crisis that gets kids mental health help across the globe. I mean, we've really moved to this crisis model of mental health instead of saying,

Oh, something's going on? My kid's crying at the drop of a hat. They have terrible headaches every day of the week, except for Friday and Saturday, these kinds of things. These are the signs. These are the clues that something else could be going on.

16:48 Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge:
And when you ask your kid, are you upset? Are you worried? Most of the time they're going to tell you, no. They may not have that connection. They may not have the verbiage. I always use my kids, they’re so different. It's so funny, Tara, how your kids just kind of come out.

But you know, my youngest, John Carlo, he is 10. He came out like a 57 year old. And he's that kind of kid where you just talk to him one time and he's got it. He's like 18, 20 months old. He's given his brother advice five and a half years older than him. He's the kind of kid that when I talked to him, he has been indoctrinated, used to, accepts, loves this verbiage. So I do a lot of verbiage and this is one of my biggest tips for parents, is how to connect to your body. So instead of saying, well, tell me about this. Right?

17:50 Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge:
So here's a great example. We went back to school and he goes to a private school and it was the first day back this academic school year and I could see he was not himself. He's pretty obvious, right. Especially when you're connected to your kids, pretty obvious. So he, I said, “What's up?” And he said, “I'm feeling very anxious.” Now he's a therapist kid. So he knows.

So I said to him, because he's used to me saying these words, “Where is it in your body? Where are you feeling it in your body?” And he took a second and he said, “I'm feeling it all over, Mommy.” And I said, “Okay, what do you think? Should we do some breathing? And maybe we can help get that down.”

He was like, “I think that's a good idea.” And so we did some breathing and then I said, “Well, where is it?” And he was like, “I'm feeling it in my head.” So I was like, “Oh, is there some particular thing that you're worried about?”

And he said, “Oh, I'm worried that the other kids are not going to know what to do and they're not going to wear their masks.” Oh, okay. And we had a conversation about it. We went through another round of breath. And I also like to do things like a scale of one to five. This takes work. But he had the tools, he felt good about it.

We talked about it. I love, we have a long drive in the morning, about a 30 minute car ride. So we get a lot of cool stuff happening in the car. A lot of cool talking, but you have to do that work. You have to teach your kids to connect. You have to give them the words. They're not going to say, “Mom, I'd really like to talk to a therapist about this.” I asked my kid and they told me they're not depressed. I mean, these are the words parents will say to me, like sometimes parents with law degrees or highly educated people. Your kid may not have a connection and awareness,

but they might say my gosh, every day I got a belly ache. I have no idea why I can't even tell you how many thousands of kids where I've seen this to be the case.

20:14 Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge:
And you know, the world is stressful. Your home may not be stressful. Maybe it is stressful. Maybe your stress is rubbing off on your kids. Nope, no guilt to moms. But we got our stuff together. There's a positive impact on our kids. And I think if you're having a hard time, dialog about it with your kids. Just be upfront and be like, this is what I'm having a hard time with it.

And then this is what I'm doing about it. We got to show our kids, know how to take care of ourselves, but also we're showing them how we problem solve, because we want them to have those same skills too, either right now or when they need it.

20:55 Tara Hunkin:
No, those are, that's some really good advice. I have to say, when you're talking about that, driving to school, I miss the drive to school. So actually we sometimes just go for a drive so there's that conversation there because it gets everybody away from their things in the house, or, you know, all the distractions we all have at home these days with being online and everything. You're right because that car conversation, the car talk.

Pretty magical? It is, it is pretty magical. And so it's definitely something that I can relate to. One of the things I know that everybody's struggling with right now, because so many of the kids, even if they are partially in person for school are now dealing with a lot of virtual learning situations. How can we get our kids to increase their focus and their engagement and their motivation when they're learning virtually like that? It's hard for me.

21:55 Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge:
My good friend and I know you know her too, Dr. Krista Burns from the American Posture Institute is an amazing speaker on something called digital dementia and how we're in this technology overload and drain.

And I feel it, this is a day, we're taping on a Tuesday. This is a day where I'm literally going to be here in front of the screen to like eight o'clock at night. Now I have my zoom glasses handy if I need them. But basically what's happening is there's multiple things happening. So we're hunching over and from a body structural point, when we're hunching over, we're causing issues with the blood flow to our brain and our body is not able to not only get the blood flow going, but it interferes with lymphatic drainage. There's all kinds of things. So we're getting this, they call it tech neck. And so that's a problem.

Then we have the drain of the lights and then of course the sitting, right? And when we're here, what are we not doing? We're not moving our tuchus, we're not getting up. We're not interacting. It's really hard on the body. I could do 12 hours worth of in-person appointments, or I could do six hours of zoom. And that six hours of zoom is a total drain on me.

I struggled to do meetings, all these meetings online, all day trainings. It's just not my jam. And I don't have an attention problem cause I've done a boatload of neuro. So what can we do to counter it? It's really important that every hour on the hour, you are getting up out of your seat and you are moving.

23:54 Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge:
I don't care if you have to set a timer and you need to do simple exercises, right? So even if you're just doing a few yoga exercises, you're doing a Crescent, right. Well, you know where you're standing and you're going from one side to the other, you're pushing your head back every hour, you're doing a plank. You've got to get up and move and you've got to get away from the screen. I think that's really important.

The other part about technology is not all technology is bad. The type of technology usage is directly correlated with kids' mental health through research. So the more passive the technology, the more we're scrolling, like social media, YouTube and whatnot, the greater, the increase in anxiety and depression. The more engaged we are like using Discord and FaceTime and all that other stuff, actually the better our mental health. So have your kids make quality choices. I think that's really important. And then it's so hard because kids are at school now and they have to be online.

So I would be pretty insistent on lunch break, not allowing them to be on their device. Now your kids are going to get angry with you and it's going to be a friction point, but set the rules in advance and just, this is what it is, tough nookies. And that you have to get moving. You have to get them doing other things. I don't even care if they're just eating their food and they're just away from a screen.

And then there has to be, I'm a big fan, Tara, of using technology that limits the time kids are on their devices. And I think that's really important to say, here's the amount of time you have and you're in control of it and when the time wears out, it's over.

25:47 Tara Hunkin:
I mean that, that's the one thing we are lucky that there are, they used to be only a couple options. There's many options now in terms of how you dial that around and how it works and everything, it can work on your wifi network. It can work on an app that can even work outside the home. Not that we go out much these days, but there are lots of great options for that. So that's really helpful.

One of the things that I've always liked, and I say to parents all the time too, is that especially the kids that do have attention issues is that we do need to give them opportunities to fidget and not to tell them not to fidget. So sitting on a sit down or if they have a chair that can swing and they can swing in it, let them do that to get that sensory input, to help them calm their nervous system. But it is interesting because I think for a lot of parents, it's the first time they actually have had to sit with their kids while they're doing their classwork and they don't realize how challenging it is for them to sit still for that. And the first thing we think we need to do is to tell them, to sit still, to focus. That's the reverse.

26:57 Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge:
So it's so true because I think it's hard sometimes, really highly educated parents, they're like, well, I learned like this and this worked for me. We have to meet our kids where they're at and if they're moving or fidgeting and they're doing better, then let's go with that.

27:16 Tara Hunkin:
Giving it an opportunity. We want to talk about some of the natural therapies that we could be using as well to help reduce some of the symptoms that we're seeing right now. And then ultimately to reverse them. What are your top recommendations?

27:35 Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge:
Well, I dive into the proven therapies to reduce and reverse mental health symptoms in my book, "It’s Gonna Be Ok!" but some of my favorites, right, are breath work, and that is really being intent and practicing, breathing at least three rounds, three times a day.

And my favorite type of breath is a 4-7-8, where you breathe in for four, you hold for seven and you exhale for eight seconds. And it just gets that nervous system regulated and it's so important. When kids are able to regulate their breath, you're more able to alert when something doesn't feel right. Whether it's your inner voice or somebody making you uncomfortable, or just not feeling like yourself. And you're able to then say, I don't feel this doesn't feel right to me, let me do something that is appropriate to do that. Breath work couldn't be more important.

Certainly nutrition, nobody ever wants to hear nutrition, but it is one of the besides breath work. It's probably one of the quickest ways to regulate your nervous system. And it's so impactful. And you can think you can have Cheetos and moderation. I'm here to tell you that's a load of baloney and there is no benefit of Cheetos, get the natural version and your taste buds change, I promise you. And I think that's really, really important.

29:10 Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge:
And then, when it comes to supporting mental health, I love certain clinical therapies. Like I love biofeedback. I love neurofeedback and PMF. They are proven ways to get that nervous system regulated quickly. And neurofeedback is one level up because it actually changes the brain and the way that it works through brainwaves, which impact neuro-transmitters. And I've been able to use that with thousands of people to correct things like issues from birth trauma, simple ADD, to me ADD is so simple. Like you can knock it out of the park with neurofeedback and, and then psychotherapy, right? So there is no magic bullet.

And as I always have a magic wand on my desk. The reason why is I don't as effective as these techniques and tools are you have to pair them with changes in behavior. You have to learn another way you can't say, Oh, I feel better because I'm doing breathwork, but I'm still going to just have negative thoughts. I'm still going to constantly do these things that are unhealthy for me. I'm going to spend time getting on that worry train, whether you're a parent or your kid asks me reassuring questions all the time.

You've got to do the work to change the behaviors. And what I always say to parents is you're spending a ton of time trying to address these behaviors, but you're literally stuck on the hill. This is about changing the way you're taking action so that the results are different in that your kid can be happy. They can pay attention.

30:58 Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge:
You can get friction down at your house. And you're really creating a platform for your kid to be successful, not just today, but in the future. So those are some of my favorite, favorite things that I recommend. But I think each approach is different. I talk about eight pillars in my book of mental health, because there are many ways to improve mental health.

And each one is a little different and each one is more appropriate for families, but really the magic juju for mental health is regulating the nervous system and pairing it with new learning. And that's what really creates dramatic change.

31:40 Tara Hunkin:
That's amazing. I am really excited about your book coming out. I love the title, "It’s Gonna Be Ok!" We all need to hear that right now.

31:48 Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge:
That's what I tell every parent I work with because as a special needs mom, times two, there's nothing more stressful than your kids struggling. And so when people come to me, they're just worried and I want them to restore. I want to feel hope and see that their kids can get better because the road is so long when your kid is struggling unnecessarily long for parents.

32:15 Tara Hunkin:
That is so true. So where can people find your book? By the time this airs, it should be out. So we're gonna be sharing this podcast with everybody as it becomes available. So where's the best place for them to go, to find your book and find out more about what you do specifically?

32:34 Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge:
Yeah, you can go to www.itsgonnabeok.com and it will send you to Amazon. You can look at "It’s Gonna Be Ok!" on Amazon. But if you go to the website, when you submit your order number, I have a whole bunch of some freemiums, videos, some downloads, some things to really help you as a parent, and they're free. You just need to enter your order number.

32:59 Tara Hunkin: That's amazing. And we'll make sure that we have the links to everything here in the show notes. So anybody that's listening right now, not to worry, you will have everything there to go and pick up a copy of "It’s Gonna Be Ok!"

Thank you so much for your time today. As I said, I'm very grateful to have you here and have all the wisdom of your experience with your own kids, with the thousands of patients that you've treated in your clinic over the years, and your continued research into what is going on with our kids and how to best deal with it. So, thanks again for spending a little bit of time with me today.

33:44 Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge:
Well, I'm grateful to be here. So, for all the parents listening, it's going to be okay. Just start with one thing and be consistent and little waves create big waves and that's what people need to remember.

33:56 Tara Hunkin:
Amazing. Thanks again.

So that's a wrap. Thanks for joining me this week on My Child Will Thrive. I'm so passionate about giving you the tools and information you need to help your child recover. And as they say, it takes a village. So join us in the My Child Will Thrive Village Facebook group where you can meet like-minded parents and stay up to date on everything we have going on at My Child Will Thrive. This is Tara Hunkin and I'll catch you on the next podcast or over at mychildwillthrive.com.