Mental Health & Mindfulness Podcasts for Kids

Mental Health & Mindfulness Podcasts for Kids

March 13, 2023

Curator

Jodi Murphy (she/her), producer of Dorktales Storytime podcast

Why did you choose this theme?

We kids’ podcast creators care deeply about our young audiences and their mental health. We know that, like adults, kids can experience overwhelming feelings from what’s happening in their personal lives and from trying to process the chaos of our world.This podcast playlist includes storytelling, news, and mindfulness podcast episodes with narratives and guidance to help kids recognize, understand, and learn how to self-regulate their big feelings.

PODCAST PICKS:Click on the podcast art to listen 👂

Big Bad's Big Feelings

Friends from the Folktale Forest are on an emotional roller coaster, especially the big bad wolf. He’s huffing and puffing towards an emotional blow-up. Thankfully a caring capybara, played by Chanel Tsang from the Peace Out Podcast, patiently helps the friends understand the big feelings they are feeling and gives them tools for self-regulating when they feel overwhelmed.

Peace Out PodcastH.A.L.T.Peace Out Podcast by Chanel Tsang is a treasure-trove of calming yoga and mindfulness practices to help kids with their social-emotional health. This episode takes a popular parenting strategy — to check if your child is hungry, angry, lonely or tired when noticing they are out of sorts — and turns it around so kids can use it to self-assess the factors impacting their feelings.

The Adventures of Power Dog in Dogland!

Time Yin

In this episode, poor Power Dog finds himself in uncertain circumstances and becomes flooded with overwhelming feelings. Through the narrative, kids learn what “shutting down” and “emotional flooding” mean, and that it’s okay to take a break, to not know what to do next, and to take a moment for your mind and heart to catch up.

The Ten NewsMental Health MattersHost Bethany Van Delft talks to kids about making mental health a priority. She points out Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, NBA star Kevin Love, and tennis champion Naomi Osaka as positive examples of people who have opened up about their struggles with their mental health and what they’re doing about it. The message: we are all in this together!

Like You: Mindfulness for KidsMental Time TravelIn this episode, Noah Glenn teaches listeners how to time travel in their minds to remember that the things that are challenging or upsetting us in the present won’t always be that way. When overwhelming feelings happen, it might be difficult to imagine that things will ever get better — that’s the perfect time for some mental time travel.

SPONSOR:

Great Mysteries of PhysicsJoin journalist Miriam Frankel as she delves into some of the great mysteries still puzzling the world's top scientists in this new podcast from The Conversation and FQXI.

Enjoy a mind-blowing journey through everything from curled-up dimensions to consciousness and parallel universes, guided by some of the biggest names in physics. In episode one we ask — is time an illusion? 

The Boar KnightAre you ready for family fun and music? Join Nathaniel the Boar Knight as he journeys across a fantasy world in search of adventure and friendship! A story suitable for all ages.

COMMUNITY:

🎤This week in Podcast The Newsletter: Iditapod is the once-a-year, very special podcast that takes you right to the Iditarod race in Alaska, with daily updates on every push and pull, interviews with the racers, and adorable details about the dogs and their little booties.

🐈Why were cats considered vessels for gods in ancient Egypt but Satan’s familiar by Europe’s Middle Ages? Join 6 Degrees of Cats podcast host and lifelong cat steward Amanda B. as she consults with a diversity of guest experts from across the world on these (among many) surprising questions in purr-suit of how — and why — cats have influenced our history and culture.🌍

I Will Not Grow Old Here is the first African podcast nominated for the Ambies Best Documentary (Short Series) category. This story starts with a statistic: 70%. That's how many young people in South Africa are unemployed. They hustle and hope to find success. But how do you make it in a place like Alexandra, a Black township in Johannesburg sometimes referred to as Gomorrah?

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CLASSIFIEDS:

📚Each week, hosts Adam and Amber read self help books of all kinds, and then sit down to discuss each book in an authentic, open, and hilarious way in Checking-In: A Self Help Book Club podcast. 

SPOTLIGHT:

Grown

is a podcast about the in-between: the nebulous, the liminal, the just plain weird time between those awkward teenage years and full-on adulthood.

Co-hosts Aleeza Kazmi and Alfonso “Fonzo” Lacayo guide listeners through true stories that deal with the challenges and joys of growing up. Using their unique points of view, Aleeza and Fonzo will discuss first crushes, culture, identity, secrets, and more. 

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PODCAST NEWS from Podnews

A free podcast transcription tool has been launched. It runs entirely on your own local device (“for the highest privacy and security”), the company says; it uses whisper.cpp’s “tiny” model. It’s powered by Spreaker, though you don’t need to be a customer to use it. It hosts the SRT file itself, which is ideal to add it to your RSS feed.Acast spoke at Podcast Movement about how the company uses geo-targeting to safely serve ads for sports betting only in locations where it’s legal.Anchor, the free podcast host, is now called Spotify for Podcasters. The new podcast hosting service from Spotify includes automated ads (US-only, invite-only), and podcast subscriptions (in 34 markets). Spotify will now allow any podcaster to use Q&A and polls - wherever they’re hosted. 

On Sound Judgment, the co-hosts from the Ambie Award-winning Bone Valley go behind the scenes on how they made the show.

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