Episode Details
EPISODE INFO
- Released
- October 21, 2025
- Duration
- 2m
- Channel
- Good Inside with Dr. Becky
- Watch on YouTube
- ▶ Open ↗
EPISODE DESCRIPTION
You know that moment… one thing goes wrong and suddenly your child declares: “This is ruined!” They crumple their paper, or knock over their tower and tears start to flow. Our instinct is to reassure: “It’s fine! Don’t be so hard on yourself!” But here’s the truth: those lines rarely help. They can actually make kids feel even more alone in their struggle. Why? Because perfectionism isn’t “bad.” It’s just a voice. At Good Inside, we call it the Perfect Voice - the part of your child that insists, “If it’s not perfect, it’s not good enough.” And instead of shutting that voice down, we can help our kids relate to it. Notice it. Talk to it. Balance it out with other voices: the good-enough voice, the I-can-try-again voice, the mistakes-mean-I’m-learning voice. Try this the next time the perfect voice shows up: “Hi Perfect Voice, I hear you. You want me to do my best. And I also know it’s okay to make mistakes.” Resilience isn’t about erasing perfectionism, it’s about helping kids turn its volume down, and tune into other, kinder voices inside of them. For more on how play can be a powerful tool for building resilience, go to https://shop.mattel.com/pages/hot-wheels-challenge-accepted #HotWheelsPartner
SPEAKERS
Dr. Becky Kennedy
hostClinical psychologist and parenting expert; host of the Good Inside podcast and founder of Good Inside.
EPISODE SUMMARY
In this episode of Good Inside with Dr. Becky, featuring Dr. Becky Kennedy, When the ‘Perfect’ Voice Shows Up in Play explores use play to soften kids’ perfectionism with the “Perfect Voice” tool Reassuring a perfectionistic child (“it doesn’t have to be perfect”) can backfire by leaving the child alone with their perfectionistic part.
RELATED EPISODES
