Boston Children’s Museum launched the Big & Little podcast in 2020 as a way to connect with kids and families unable to visit because of the COVID pandemic, and help them navigate stressful and unprecedented times. As the pandemic eased, it continued to be a way for people around the world to stay engaged with the Museum, and for us to share our point of view with our global community.

Over the last six years, President Emerita Carole Charnow and other hosts have invited artists, musicians, educators, researchers, and kids on air to explore the role creativity and play have in helping kids grow up healthy, happy, and curious. With more than 250 thousand plays across our series about Innovation in Education and Creativity, the Big & Little podcast is a confirmed hit.

This year, as part of the Museum’s Empathy at the Heart initiative that was funded by a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc., we launched a new season with a new theme. Our Empathy Series explores how different people define and express empathy, and provides parents with the tools they need to foster empathy in kids and practice it in their own lives. We feature the voices of healthcare workers, authors, researchers, and others, and help caregivers and kids understand how empathy factors in their lives, and why it’s a vital part of growing up and living well.

The first two episodes of the season are already out:

• Episode 1 features Dr. Milena Batanova and Kiran Bhai from Making Caring Common, a national initiative based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, a program dedicated to promoting caring and empathy in schools, families, and communities. Together with Boston Children’s Museum President Melissa Higgins, Dr. Batanova and Ms. Bhai dive into what empathy actually means for children, and how it shapes their relationships to their families, friends, and communities.
• Episode 2 is a conversation between President Emerita Carole Charnow and Dr. Jim O’Connell, President of the Boston Healthcare for the Homeless program. Dr. O’Connell shares the journey that led him to street medicine, and how his work has challenged common assumptions about homelessness and the unhoused.

Future episodes will further explore the meaning and impact of empathy, with episodes about books & stories on the topic, a peek inside some of the Museum’s own research on empathy, and how respect for oneself and others is built into our exhibits.