Parent Unplugged: The Parenting Podcast Helping Parents Feel Less Alone

From the pressure to get parenting “right” to the realities of autism, grief, loss and family life, Parent Unplugged is creating a space for the conversations parents don’t always get to have.

Since launching in April 2025, Parent Unplugged has quickly become one of the UK’s most successful parenting podcasts, reaching #1 in Apple Podcasts’ Parenting chart, consistently charting in the Top 15 and being long-listed for the British Podcast Awards 2026.

Hosted by parenting coach and mum of three Charis Halsall, the podcast was created with a simple aim: to find out what parenting really looks and feels like for other people -  and to help parents realise they are not alone in the moments when they feel overwhelmed, overstimulated or completely unsure of what they are doing.

The podcast has since built a community of more than 80,000 people across social media, welcoming guests including Christine McGuinness, Danielle Lloyd, Annabel Karmel, Kelsey Parker, Helen Thorne from Scummy Mummies, James Hunt (@storiesaboutautism), Charlotte (@twins_tides_and_autism_vibes), Amy Neville (@amynevfashiondiaries) and many more.

But beyond the recognisable names, Parent Unplugged has become a platform for parents to share experiences that don’t always make it into traditional parenting conversations.

Episodes have explored raising autistic children, grief, cancer, addiction, relationship breakdown, single parenting and the everyday pressures of motherhood and family life.

Among the guests is Chris Whellams, who shared his experience of raising his daughter alone after losing his wife to cancer, while autism advocates and parents including James Hunt and Charlotte have opened up conversations around raising neurodivergent children and navigating family life.

For Charis, the podcast was born out of her own experience of becoming a parent.

"I set up the Parent Unplugged podcast because I really wanted to learn more about other parenting stories and journeys. After having had three children myself, sometimes I felt overwhelmed, overstimulated, and like I generally just didn’t know what I was doing. I wasn’t always sure if I felt alone in feeling like this, or if this was something other parents were going through too.

“So I set up the podcast to speak to other parents about their real-life parenting stories. I wanted to find out what other people were going through, and if it was like I had felt. And then I wanted to share those stories so that other people could feel less alone in their parenting journeys.”

At a time when parents have access to more advice, opinions and information than ever before, Parent Unplugged is taking a different approach.

Rather than promising the perfect parenting method or telling families exactly what they should be doing, the podcast puts real experiences at the heart of the conversation.

From celebrity parents to ordinary mums and dads navigating extraordinary circumstances, every episode asks the same question: what is parenting really like when nobody is pretending to have it all figured out?

With chart success, a rapidly growing community and a long-listing at the British Podcast Awards 2026, Parent Unplugged is proving that sometimes the most valuable thing parents can hear is that somebody else has felt it too.