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Kids & Family Podcasts
3,261 shows and 378,740 episodes sit under Kids & Family.
Discover the best kids and family podcasts on PlayNext: parenting help, bedtime stories, science for curious kids, and more. Updated weekly.
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Family audio has two very different jobs. One is to help an adult through a bedtime battle or a school problem, and through the worry underneath both, that a child’s behavior means something has gone wrong. The other is to hand a child a story to walk into. The Follow-Up: Extinction Sleep Training on The PedsDocTalk Podcast: Child Health, Development & Parenting—From a Pediatrician Mom and Dungeon Rescue - A Funny Story for Kids on LOL Storytime - Stories for Kids both live here, and they share almost nothing else.
The parent-facing shows divide between practical coaching and slower reflection, with family-life storytelling running through both. Discipline is the usual way in, and it almost never stays by itself. Calm Parenting Podcast has Practical Ways to Discipline (Not Punish) Toddlers Through Teens #565, and Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children asks the same questions about neurodivergent kids. Mind Your Mama - Healing Burnout, Building Boundaries, and Finding Yourself puts the adult’s own state at the center of it with 55. Wake Up Exhausted, Go to Bed Exhausted, Repeat — You're Not Failing, The System Is.
The Parenting hub is the large route off this page. The child-facing side is smaller, and it is theatrical rather than instructive: comic stories and bedtime tales, some of which expect the listener to join in.
When behavior becomes the whole day
The subject here is the bad moment itself, a transition that goes wrong or a limit that does not hold. What the adult does next can settle it or make it worse. Calm Parenting Podcast coaches directly and keeps circling back to resistance and boundaries, in titles like When Time-Outs, Behavior Charts & Taking Away Screens Don’t Work, Try This… #584, Get Resistant Kids to Get Off Screens, Come to Dinner, Transition Without Fights #570 and Practical Ways to Establish Boundaries & Stay Connected With Really Intense Kids #567.
Is My Child A Monster? A Parenting Therapy Podcast works the same material slowly, in conversation with the parents themselves. The situations are unusually concrete: Kevin & Scott Part 1 of 3: When Parenting Feels Like A Sea of Chaos, Bonus Episode: Managing Car Rides With Kids and Nicky & AJ Part 4 of 4: When Rewards and Punishments No Longer Work. The Peaceful Parenting Podcast widens the frame with Why Strong-Willed Kids Are So Hard to Parent (and Why They’re Amazing) and The hardest part of parenting: Sarah and Corey on TRANSITIONS!.
Connection, attachment and gentler limits
The connection-first shows ask the parent to look at what surrounds a behavior instead of stopping at the behavior. Connect Method Parenting, whose feed title stacks eleven more kinds of parenting after the name, is warm solo coaching that keeps limits and acceptance in the same breath. Hear it in Ep #198 Roots of Attachment, Ep #193 Connection in the Mess: How to Stay With Your Child Through It All and Ep #185 Limits That Feel Like Love.
The Aware Parenting Podcast is slower and more open-ended. Episode 210: Embodying loving presence in our parenting with Linde Lambrechts, Episode 212: The tangible effects of having our needs met as mothers with Caitlin Jaspers and Episode 209: Reclaiming the power, beauty, and safety of our yeses and noes show what it keeps setting beside parenting: the adult’s own needs, and the right to say no. Even “gentle parenting” as a term gets argued with. The Family Business with The Alessis: A Christian Parenting and Marriage Podcast has an episode called Gentle Parenting Fail: Why Trends Don't Help You Raise Confident Kids (Top 10 Episode).
Neurodivergence, development and school
Full-Tilt Parenting is the specialist of the group. It covers gifted and twice-exceptional children in Dr. Mike Postma on the Plight of Gifted & 2e (Twice Exceptional) Children, dyslexia in Rebecca Bush Offers a Pathway for Parents with Newly-Identified Dyslexic Kids, and school planning in What Parents Need to Know about the IEP Process, with Therapist Beth Liesenfeld. Then there is the after-school collapse, which gets How Can I Stay Grounded When My Child Falls Apart After School?.
PedsDocTalk takes the developmental questions. The Follow-Up: Biting, Hitting, Throwing Explained and The Follow-Up: Strong-Willed Toddler Strategies stay close to the immediate problem, while The Truth About Raising Securely Attached Kids: What Most Parents Get Wrong goes after the long game.
The parent’s life still counts
A household can be struggling even when no single child problem explains it. Minimalist Moms Podcast | Purposeful Life & Parenting Tips treats clutter and maternal identity as one practical problem. Minimalism That Actually Works (Even When Life Feels Full) | Kelly Foss, Millennial Minimalists (EP445) and Return on Energy: Rethinking Success, Ambition & Motherhood | Carrie Fabris (Bonus Episode) stay on the adult's side, and then Tantrums vs. Meltdowns: Understanding Your Child’s Behavior (and How to Reduce It) | Tia Slightham (EP436) turns back toward the child.
Mind Your Mama is sharper and faster. 60. Summer Break Starts Friday and I'm Terrified — Here's My Honest Plan to Not Lose Myself and 61. Every Institution Talks "Community" Until Your Kid Is Inconvenient — Then You're On Your Own put parental strain next to the institutions that are supposed to help. World’s Greatest Dad with Ali & Neil goes looser, using conversation and jokes to get at serious questions: How to Talk to Your Kids About Mental Health, How to Talk to Your Kids About Divorce and How to Talk to Your Kids About Friendship & Exclusion.
Faith-centered family practice has its own lane. Joyful Parenting Podcast teaches it plainly, through Teaching your child how to pray, How to help your children develop spiritual growth habits and How to Help Your Children Navigate Fear. Everything above, from discipline to the parent’s own burnout, carries on at the Parenting hub.
Stories children can step into
LOL Storytime - Stories for Kids builds its comedy out of kid-sized misunderstandings that get out of hand. The titles carry the premise: Magical Beans (but not THOSE beans) - A Funny Story for Kids, Eww, Gross! - A Funny Story for Kids and My Parents Are Pirates - A Funny Story for Kids. The narration is fast and switches voices constantly.
The Reading Bug Podcast - Original Adventures, Bedtime Stories and Music for Kids is theatrical and wants the listener taking part. It runs bedtime material in Bedtime Stories: Stella and the Star that Came to Tea, serial adventure in Adventure Encore: A Robot Adventure, Part 1, and a factual detour in Fact Fly: Where Does Trash Actually Go?. It is the one to reach for when nobody wants another conversation about parenting.
Where to start
- Persistent power struggles: Calm Parenting Podcast, and “My Child Is A Mini-Me. Help!” Stop the Power Struggles & Drama #582.
- Neurodivergence and school support: Full-Tilt Parenting, starting with Understanding and Navigating the Parent-Teacher Relationship with Becca Wertheim.
- Difficult emotions, handled connection-first: Connect Method Parenting, and Ep #194 Mad to Sad: The Hidden Path to Emotional Maturity.
- Parental overload rather than a child problem: Minimalist Moms Podcast, and You’re Not Lazy. You’re Dysregulated. | Elyssa Smith (Bonus Episode).
- Listening with the children instead of about them: The Reading Bug Podcast, and Bedtime Stories: Moonlight Marshmallow Mischief.
Featured shows below are part of the PlayNext catalog. Updated weekly.
Recommended clips
The best minutes on this beat
The highest-scoring 60-second moments anywhere in kids & family, one per show.
Drawn from 36,587 playable clips across 2,390 shows.
New on PlayNext
Just added to Kids & Family
The newest kids & family clips in the library, one per show — ordered by when the clip was made, not when the episode came out.
10 clips, one per show, added 2026-09-06.
Featured shows
17 shows, described rather than listed
Each has a written blurb stored with the page, with the role its editor gave it on this beat.
A practical, opinionated two-host show for parents in the thick of toddler behavior. Episodes move quickly from real parent scenarios to concrete tools, with a firm emphasis on connection before correction.
A pediatrician-parent host brings child health and development into the same conversation. Episodes cover sleep training, toddler behavior, and evidence-based guidance for families navigating everyday pediatric questions.
Interview-driven and parent-to-parent in feel, with experts unpacking giftedness, twice-exceptional kids, after-school dysregulation, and the school systems that surround them.
A coaching monologue that circles the same core idea from many angles: regulation, repair, and staying present through the mess of family life. Warm and non-shaming in its approach to parenting hard moments.
Emotionally direct and honest about what yelling and reactive parenting actually cost. Episodes move between the parent who needs permission to look at a pattern and the practical next step that follows that recognition.
Takes a therapy-room shape with real parent situations unpacked over multiple episodes. Strong on technology strategies, neurodivergent behavior, and reading a child's actions as communication rather than misbehavior.
Built for the later-stage parent navigating helicopter parenting, failure to launch, and the work of letting go. Interview-led and emotionally direct about enabling, guilt, and family repair.
An open, interview-led voice that includes fatherhood, co-parenting, neurodivergent family life, and high-conflict divorce. Conversations feel unpolished and specific in a way that makes heavy subjects approachable.
Story-first and intimate, with episodes shaped around fertility, postpartum experience, family structure, and the weirdness of early parenthood. Guest narratives are given room to breathe inside a carefully framed editorial voice.
Slow, spacious, and emotionally generous. The show links everyday parenting moments to regulation, attachment, and repair, and is comfortable with the bedtime-adjacent overlap between calm parenting and calming children.
Warm and interview-led around children's books, education, and family reading. Episodes translate a book's themes into what they mean for kids, parents, and families choosing what to read together.
A solo narrator delivering fast, comic stories directly to children. Premises are absurd and specific, and the storytelling trusts kids to follow quick turns and goofy logic without needing a lesson spelled out.
Fast, interview-based, and gleefully silly. Guest conversations treat nonsense premises as urgent factual inquiries, making it a natural fit for families who want comedy that sounds like a daft conversation rather than a lesson.
Moves between scripted adventure stories and fact-led curiosity segments. Layered language and call-and-response participation make it engaging for active listening as well as quiet wind-down.
Single-narrator, public-domain literature read aloud at a pace calibrated for falling asleep. Episodes work through novels like King Arthur and Rainbow Valley in long, unhurried chapters with minimal host commentary.
Soft storybook narration with cozy physical detail and gently paced plots that open into mild adventure before settling back into calm. Designed for children at bedtime rather than active daytime listening.
Bright, question-driven, and built around an adult guide and a kid perspective moving through a topic together. Segments stay short and return frequently to plain-language explanation, humor, and listener participation.
Where to start
5 routes in, one per reader
Direct, opinionated, and full of concrete tools for the parent dealing with toddler hitting, defiance, and emotional storms.
Expert-informed and emotionally honest about giftedness, school strain, after-school crashes, and the needs that do not fit the default script.
Fast, funny, and built around absurd premises children can follow without a screen. A good first stop when the family need is entertainment, not advice.
Slow, classic literature read aloud at a pace made for drifting off. No lesson, no advice, just unhurried narration through a long novel.
Built for parents navigating helicopter parenting, failure to launch, and the emotional work of letting an adult child find their footing.
Glossary
Words this beat uses without explaining
An approach that prioritizes connection, emotional validation, and understanding the reason behind behavior rather than punishment or compliance-first discipline.
A term covering children whose neurological development differs from typical patterns, including ADHD, autism, giftedness, and twice-exceptional (2e) profiles.
The process by which a calm adult helps a dysregulated child settle by modeling and sharing a regulated emotional state rather than demanding the child calm down independently.
A pattern in which a young adult struggles to achieve independence from parents in areas like employment, housing, or daily responsibility, often linked to over-functioning by parents.
Podcast episodes designed for low-stimulation listening at sleep time, typically slow narration, read-aloud stories, or calm music rather than advice or fast-paced conversation.
A child who is both gifted and has one or more learning differences or disabilities, requiring support that addresses both the advanced abilities and the areas of challenge simultaneously.
The period following childbirth, covering physical recovery, emotional adjustment, and the reshaping of identity and relationships that accompanies early parenthood.