Childhood Matters and its Spanish sister program, Nuestro Niños, are parent education radio programs intended for parents with young children. They are live, one-hour weekly call-in shows broadcasted throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. The shows cover a wide variety of topics including child health and wellness, school readiness, discipline, hand washing/flu prevention, and early literacy.

Childhood Matters is broadcasted Sundays from 7-8 AM on 98.1 KISS-FM for San Francisco Bay Area, K-Ocean 105.1 FM for Monterey and Santa Cruz, La Nuestra KBBF 89.1 FM for North Bay Area, and from 10-11 AM on 1480 KGOE-AM for Eureka. The show can also be streamed on childhoodmatters.org. Nuestro Niños is broadcasted on Sundays from 8-9 AM on La Kalle 100.7 and 105.7-FM, Radio Cultural KBBF 89.1-FM, Tricolor 99.5FM, Jose 107.1-FM, and KMBX-700-AM.

Childhood Matters and Nuestro Niños are presented by the Interactive Parenting Media. The programs are supported by several local Northern California First 5 County Commissions, foundational funding, private donors, and other contributions.

The programs’ mission is to inform and inspire parents and all who care about children so that every child may be happy, healthy, and thrive.

The programs have approximately 25,000-30,000 Northern Californian listeners per week. According to the 2008-2009 First 5 Marin Annual Evaluation Report, 88-100% of parents reported that programming has positively affected their parenting skills, and improved their knowledge and awareness of community resources. In addition they reported using a suggestion from the show in their own parenting and feeling less isolated as a result of listening. Seventy-five percent of parents reported that programming increased their knowledge of kid’s health issues and 100% of parents reported discussing topics raised on the show with others.