Kids Stories with Super Sound Effects, The Daydreaming Podcast

Meet the Founder 

My name is Benjamin Carroll and I am the owner and founder of The Daydreaming Network, where stories come to life. I’m an engineer by trade, graduated from Georgia Tech, go Jackets!

I have three beautiful kids and my lovely wife who supports me in doing all of this. They are the inspirations behind why I do what I do. I thank them so much for being a part of that. 

I used to work in a major manufacturing company where we did big, heavy machinery work. I used to build boats and other things, it was very cool.

I had a particular path I was going down, but then when you have kids, apparently it changes your entire life. I was very happy to dive right into that world. The more you give to it, the more it gives back to you. It’s always been great. 

We have six kids and the now six year old, who’s the oldest, went off to kindergarten. There was a realization that it’s going so fast and they start getting introduced to the world. It was great to see them blossom and become who they are and it’s great to keep on watching it. I was watching her watch her iPad that was snuck into my house and I was curious about what was on there. I realized I have no earthly idea what she’s watching.  No matter how much you try, you can’t be with them the whole time. You want them to have their own little space but I did want to be a part of it.

Career Change

I’m an engineer so I thought I could think of a solution for this. There is great content but nothing is better to do than do it yourself.  I published my first children’s book, Those Who Dream. 

I realized some inefficiencies in the world of self published kids books so I thought I had something. I started last year and we’re almost a year now of writing our own content and creating narrations and immersive sound effects. That was all on me initially. Then we got people to start putting their books on our site. We got narrators who are much better at doing it than what I’m doing. They are professionals and they are wonderful people. It slowly turned into The Daydream Podcast.  We have a lot of kids books and we bring them to life. We have a team of people who are very passionate about their stories and want to share stories with kids and families around the world.

Screen Free Kids Stories 

I wanted to up the audio game for kids. There’s some audio books out there where they do sound effects. I thought, what if I did that for kids? I think kids would respond so well to it because they are all about the environment you give them. Screens are so stimulating to their minds.

I thought that we could get sound effects to really capture the sense of the story. If in the story they’re walking down a street, you hear the cars in the background or you hear footsteps on the ground. We try to capture as much of the story that the author is trying to portray and from there we let their minds do the work.

How one kid will imagine the story, might be maybe a little different than how the other kid imagines the story even though there’s pictures. It’s like reading, it’s like reading Harry Potter before the movies came out. It allows their minds to unlock in a way that they don’t get the opportunity very much.

We also want to be a tool for parents and teachers to be able to take a new look at it. This can provide an alternative, a very high quality alternative for screen time. You can’t avoid screens and they’re not all bad. It’s the moderation part of it.  

Be Inspired by Kids Stories 

We provide a wide variety of types of stories. All these authors have such wonderful stories to tell. They are all different. I think the overall vibe of the podcast is that we are trying to create an enriching environment. We want to unlock that inspiration so that as they grow up they have all these touch points. That’s how empathy starts, is being able to have those touch points.

It’s a lot of fun because that’s what keeps my job really interesting. Every day is different. You never run out of ideas of how to turn a story into something. We are capturing these amazing little tiny details in life.

Connect with The Daydream Podcast

You can listen on all major platforms. One of our favorite platforms is Yodo, which is a screenless player. We absolutely love Yodo because they take the screenless game to a whole new level. All these various kids podcasts go into one spot and you get to enjoy all this kind of content. So it’s really cool. 

What I See is Love 

When it comes to our favorite episodes, there are many. The ones that kind of stick out in my mind are how they made me feel. 

I’m not sure if you’ve ever had this experience where you’re reading a story to your kid and you find yourself inspired or getting caught up in a story.  Those are some of my favorites. One is called, What I See is Love. It was cool because it was a simple story, but it was also we tried to bottle up in audio form love and try to portray the best we could. I spent a lot of time, probably more time than I should have on that episode, just trying to really get it going and get it together. 

Golden Quest

Another favorite episode is called The Golden Quest. It’s going to be 30 minutes and launching by the time we’re doing our recordings. It is actually launching next week. It’s actually about a kid learning about financial stuff. It’s an entirely different set of stories. The story that was created was this long epic adventure.  We went through farms, we went to the asteroid belt, we went to a university, we went everywhere. Trying to weave the story in and having bits of music in there as well as a lot of sound effects was so fun. It’s an epic story. I have found as a parent that trying to teach my kids something is so much easier when I make it entertaining in some way, and it sounds like this is incredibly entertaining.

Within the Margin

We also do an interview segment where we do within the margin. Which is our interview channel, which is upcoming in February.

We will actually have an interview with the author about that story (Epic) and his inspiration behind all of that. I’m really excited to pick his brain about why he picked what he picked. We have the stories for the kids, but then having a conversation with the parents about the people entertaining their kids. I want parents to trust me and trust the authors who are putting stories on. We want you to have that because it’s such an intimate thing. In these stories you’re letting us into your child’s mind and we take that seriously. We are thankful and  honored for them to let us into such an intimate part of their lives.

If you think about when you’re reading a kid’s book, it’s at the very intimate parts of your life. It’s at bedtime or during relaxation time. It’s when you’re giving your child a time to settle down for the day. For parents who work all the time that might be the one little spot that they have that maybe they’re enjoying a story together.

That’s why when you look at other kids podcasts, I praise them for everything they’re doing.  There’s so many good quality podcasts out there that we want to be a part of that journey of helping people nurture their kids. 

Under 12, Tune In 

We kind of cater to 12 and under. Even though a story is from ages 6 to 10, often that’s because of the reading level. A six year old or a four year old can’t read a graphic novel but they will be entertained by all the fun sound effects and have it being read to them. Every kid can enjoy the story. We’re just here to entertain. So we’re for 12 and under.  We try to keep it fun and we try to keep it exciting. 

Excitement for 2024 

We have the Within the Margin Podcast is coming out in February, which we’re very excited about. It does a whole new layer to what we’re doing, getting even more in depth with with the stories that we’re trying to tell.

Overall we are just excited, 2024 is going to be really exciting. We have so many books on the docket. We’re hoping to get to the point where every day we have a new story to tell. We’re excited to increase the volume and keep it coming.