Good Inside with Dr. Becky
Hosted by Dr. Becky Kennedy
Dr. Becky has a close call with fidget toys.
2,129 words · 1 speaker
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
Okay, guys. This is an emergency drop about squishies. And I want to tell you why I want to talk to you all about this. It comes from a place of confession. The other night, they almost did something totally nuts. It was about 11:00 PM, and I am on what I know is a fake website that claims to have squishies. They even claimed to have neatos. And I have been late to the game, okay? I am not always one with the trends. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna get my kid one of these. But I knew I was a moment away from sharing my credit card details with what was definitely a scam website. And still, I was debating it. Finally, I took a breath, and I kind of said, what has happened to my life?
And even more, what is going on? This has been the topic in so many of my mom group chats. This has been the topic so many of you have been DMing me about. And I just want to talk about it with you. And honestly, as you can tell, not from the place of, I figured it all out. I mean, I seriously almost risked my family's financial security on the off-chance I might get some scented piece of foam for my child. And this is coming from me. And I actually think it's a good thing for kids to want things and not have them. But I found myself so sucked in. So let's get to it. First of all, I don't think your kid is spoiled. And I know you might be thinking, hold on, I didn't ask you that. And also, you don't know my kid.
But I think this is coming up for a lot of us. Maybe you think, my kid has stuffed animals. Why do they need squishies? My kid has a squishy. Why do they need a specific brand? My kid has nine. Why do they need number 10 and 11? Wherever we are, we probably have a kid that is asking us where these items or talking about them. And then we start to tell ourselves a story, right? My kid is so spoiled. My kid is so ungrateful. I think there's something else going on here. And I'm not trying to say the kind of pattern isn't problematic. But as soon as we say, I think my kid is spoiled, our kid kind of becomes the enemy. We leave with frustration. We still might be likely to get them at the store because we feel guilty. So let's look at it from a different perspective. Okay, I want to start with a story.
When I was a kid, I was desperate for oily stickers. I actually want to know if you were too. I collected them. Right? I also collected trolls. And if you collected trolls, then you understand. The desire to collect items, especially in those tween-ish years, must be so strong because I don't know if trolls ever made sense as a desirable collectible. But there I was, oilies and stickers, and I wanted them. And then I'd be at a friend's house and I'd say, oh, my goodness, you have this oily sticker. My sister, who was younger, had an oily sticker. I really wanted it. I may or may not have stolen it from her. Like, that's how much I was also into collectibles. So what's happening?
Collectibles start to really become a thing in our tween years, in part because we're looking for belonging. Right? In those years, you're starting to feel separate from your family, like, origin. You're starting to figure out your own identity. And sometimes, collectibles represent something that feels like you, feels like of your generation. And I have a feeling in every generation, the things that kids and tweens have wanted to collect make no sense to their parents. Oily stickers and trolls didn't make sense to my parents. Squishies don't make sense to us, and that's kind of the point for our kids. So here's the TLDR in it. Wanting to collect things around the tween years has kind of always been part of development.
But something is different. And I think the something that's different is what's making a lot of us say, my kid is so spoiled, what's happening? The wanting is ancient, okay? The waiting is different.
When I wanted an oily sticker, here's how it would go. I'd find my mom, and I'd say, oh, we really want an oily sticker. I want another one. I want my first one, whatever it was. Best-case scenario for me is my mom would say, you know what? Maybe on Saturday, we can go to a store. To be honest, she often didn't say that, but that was the best case. So I had to go talk to a human. And my best-case scenario, based on my lived experience, is my mom would say, we could check out a store a couple days from now. Then maybe that day would come. I'd get in the car, we'd drive there. I'm like, oh, do they have the oilies? Do they have the oilies? I don't know. They may, they may not. And then I'd get there. This circuit is very different in 2026, okay?
Now, our kids have grown up in an environment where they know something is a click away, a moment away. Ooh, I want a squishy. My association for most things in life, if I'm a young kid in 2026, is all that means is I need to go to a website, or my parent does, right now. Search for it right now. Click on it right now and get it 12 hours later sometimes, right? That's what happens for so many of us. So, the wanting of collectibles, that's something a lot of us had too. But the expectation of now? I know it looks spoiled, but in some ways, our kids are just responding to the conditions of the external world and maybe even, running for our truth,
the conditions of our family home. If in general, my kid wants something right away, I order it right away. I click on it right away. It gets delivered essentially right away. Maybe because I tell myself, oh, I just don't want to deal with this. It's not a big deal. I can make it happen. Underneath the way we understandably rationalize it, our children are building a circuit in their body that sounds like this. I want something and I expect my parent to look it up, get it, click on it, have it delivered right away. Now, let's bring that to the squishy craze. Well, that's what they're asking for. They are basically begging us to put in our credit card to a fake scam website because they expect everything to be delivered right away. Not because they're spoiled, but because
they haven't really learned a circuitry of waiting, of wanting and not wanting, of tolerating frustration, as opposed to the way a quick click can be the ultimate exit from frustration.
Now, I also think there's a part here around gratitude. I've had a couple of parents contact me and say something like, "My kid has three squishies. Like, why can't they be grateful?" Here's the thing, I really believe in the development of gratitude, but I think we get it backward. We want our kid to be grateful, of course, but gratitude only comes after the tolerance of frustration. If my kid isn't used to wanting and not having, then every time they want something, they look outside to get an additional item. They've been kind of trained that way, that that's how the world works. Gratitude comes from an internal gaze. What do I have? What can I appreciate?
If we haven't learned how to manage the frustration of wanting and not having, and that tolerance takes a while to develop, then our frustration crowds out the gratitude. So if you're thinking, "I wish my kid was just grateful for the kind of number of neetos or squishies they have," I promise you the pathway to getting there isn't the additional one. It's actually tolerating, wanting one more, not having it, and many, many, many moments later, many, many, many reps later, then a kid has the conditions to say, "Oh, look at this one I have," because they're not constantly gazing outward. If a kid is always accustomed to wanting,
being immediately followed by getting, then there's a lot of desperate, awful behavior because in some ways it feels like you're in survival mode. "I have to complete the circuit I'm always used to. I have to complete the circuit I'm always used to. Want something, do anything to get it because that's the only way I've learned my body can get calm again."
Okay, so let's just end on this. What do I actually do in the moment? What do I do when I'm standing there, my kid's asking me for one, or they're asking me for their 39th? First of all, I just want to say, I'm at the Neato Squishy Police. Only you know how many you want to get, if any, completely up to different families. I know parents tend not to need much help when they want to say yes. If you want to say yes, I think you're probably covered. But there might be a part of you that's thinking, "I want to say no, but it's so intense." Dr. Becky, if you were almost giving your credit card to what your new is this game website, then you get it. You know how intense these moments feel. So here's what I want to share. I want to share a little bit of a script. That, again, it's not something I think you need to memorize.
It's not like this is the only way to do it. But it might be something you want to pick up because it resonates with what you want to say. But sometimes we all struggle to kind of find these words. You might say to your kid, "Hey, you know what? Squishies are awesome. They're so awesome." And you're right. A lot of kids around you have more than you do. I believe you. Then pause, see where your kid takes them. Sometimes that might be all they need. But if you have to go further, you can add something that communicates your family value. I find that to be really helpful. You know, in our family, we don't get things just because other people have things. And I know that makes things feel harder. Here's something else I know.
You can be really disappointed and, okay, I know that about you. And I also know I'm right here with you. You can complain to me. You could be upset with me. I know we're going to get through this together. I guess the big picture here is, our job isn't to protect our kids from wanting things. I would argue one of the most important skills in life, and the conditions are harder and harder to develop this. One of the most important skills in life is learning to tolerate the feelings of wanting and not having. And the reason I want to give that to you is because if you do want to say no, I want to let you know you're doing more than saying no to a squishy. You're building a skill. Your kid is going to need one. Yes, the stakes are even higher than squishies. And I know, at some point, they will be.
You are helping your kid learn how to tolerate frustration and...
Another hard truth is we have to tolerate hard feelings in our kids, i.e. their frustration, before they can learn how to tolerate those feelings in themselves. Our kids kind of borrow our sturdiness. They borrow our belief that they really do want something and they really are capable enough to wait or not have it. All right. I want to let you know within anything else, because I'm in this too, that I am totally with you in the squishy war. I talk a good game when I drop an extra short podcast, but holy moly, that 11:00 p.m. moment was very, very real. Very, very hard. And so if you find yourself in a moment like that, just know
I am right there with you, giving you a hug, cheering you on. We are going to get through this era of squishy craze. We are going to get through this hard stage together.
Page updated October 30, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated