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‘‘I’ve known great musicians who didn’t have it,” says Levin, 40, a singer-guitarist based on the central New Jersey coast. ‘‘They really have the kid vibe if a kid is talking and they go down to their eye level. Or if they see a kid and their eyes brighten up, they know they’re in for a treat.”

Levin’s band, Yosi & the Superdads, is a band with the kid vibe big-time.

‘‘They’re great musicians,” he says of lead guitarist Gary Hoffman, drummer Scott Lewis and Jammin’ Joe Geisler on bass. ‘‘And they’re dads, too.”

For Levin, being a dad is where this whole performing-rock-songs-for-kids thing got started nearly a decade ago.

‘‘It was unexpected,” he admits. ‘‘My daughter entered nursery school, and so one day, I brought in my guitar and played in the classroom.

‘‘The director stuck her head in and said, ‘I like what you’re doing. If you come in twice a month I’ll give you a tuition reduction.’”

Levin had been a musician as a teenager, most notably in the Jersey Shore underground punk band The Exposed back in the 1980s. But in 1997, he was a psychologist, working as an outpatient therapist in Ocean County, N.J., after earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Rutgers and a master’s in counseling at Montclair State. Bringing a guitar to the nursery school wasn’t supposed to spark a career change.

But it did. There were birthday parties, and shows at other schools, then CDs and a band and mini-tours. Levin quit his day job to do music — kids’ music — full time.

Puns, punk and pasta

‘‘When I was starting out,” he says, ‘‘the names were, basically, Barney and Raffi.”

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But Levin wanted to do rock music that was fun and accessible, something parents could enjoy with their children.

‘‘I have a very eclectic sense of musical taste,” he says. ‘‘As time went by, we thought, ‘Kids like all kinds of music ... and I like all kinds of music.”

So he added calypso and ragtime, klezmer and punk rock. And he wrote songs about things that kids could relate to: alligators, monkeys, trains, balloons. And he used alliteration — tongue twisters, really — like the one about the big bad boy bouncing in a bathtub in a big bubbly bubble bath. Or passing the purple pesto pasta, please. There’s a CD dedicated to food — a must for children’s performers — called ‘‘What’s Eating Yosi.” And there’s at least one song, ‘‘Dinosaurs In Love,” that was inspired by actual kids at an actual concert.

‘‘It just came together that way,” says Levin, explaining that when he did a show one Valentine’s Day and asked the kids what they’d like to hear a song about, ‘‘a boy said ‘Dinosaurs!’ and a girl said ‘Love!’ at just about the same time.”

Down with the dads

Levin is chatting by phone on his way to a gig when one of his songs — ‘‘Chicken Soup” — comes on the radio. There’s been a lot of success, he says, with the XM Kids station. Still, he’s not sitting back waiting for the royalty checks. The father of four says he performs about 400 shows a year, some solo at schools and birthday parties and some at larger venues with the full band.

What’s in the name, anyway? Why ‘‘Superdads?”

‘‘One of the things we thought about was that we’re all dads,” Levin explains. ‘‘We wanted to be role models for what we think good dads should be.”

The short list: creative, out of the ordinary, happy, kid-friendly and fun.

Fun is important.

‘‘My wife says I don’t work, I just go out and have fun every day,” Levin laughs. ‘‘And it’s a lot of fun. I’m never bored. There’s always something new.”

Partly because he has ridden a trend in which performers put out music that appeals to children and parents without saccharine sweetness and without talking down.

‘‘I think there’s a lot more available for kids than there ever was,” he observes. ‘‘You see Laurie Berkner on Noggin, Dan Zanes, Justin Roberts, Imagination Movers. They Might Be Giants are now doing a children’s album, and they’re wonderfully inventive.”

As for his own band, Levin says Yosi & the Superdads specializes in shows that are completely interactive — and a lot of fun.

‘‘Kids are the best audience,” he says. ‘‘They get into the music with their whole body.”

And the Superdads, in full ‘‘kid vibe” mode, get into it, too.

Yosi & the Superdads will perform at 1 p.m. Saturday in the BlackRock Center for the Arts, 12901 Town Commons Drive, Germantown. Tickets are $10. Call 301-528-2260.