The kitchen, in my opinion, is one of the best places to practice letting go of perfection. When I filmed Teens Cook Real Food with eight real teens who were mostly beginners, we captured the messy, real-life moments: broken eggs, small cuts, burned food, and lots of learning along the way. I intentionally pushed them to measure like TV chefs, eyeball seasonings, and move faster than felt comfortable, all to help loosen that grip of perfectionism.
Cooking shows us that food doesn’t need to be flawless to be delicious, and that it’s actually pretty hard to completely mess things up.
When kids can aim for “yummy” instead of “five-star restaurant quality,” they gain confidence, experience, and momentum. If you have a teen whose perfectionist tendencies keep them from trying new things or putting themselves out there, cooking can be a powerful and practical way to help them grow!
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No time for the video? Here are the notes!
Time Stamps for Helping Teens Overcome Perfectionism by Cooking
0:00 – If you’re just finding this series, here are tidbits 1 and 2! My normal episodes are a lot longer than this, but also only once a week.
0:17 – Today we’re talking about perfectionism and how it can get in the way of cooking “good enough.”
Perfectionist tendencies can freeze us up! – Katie Kimball, Raising Healthy Families
0:54 – The kitchen is a great place to get over perfection, because you’re always going to make mistakes.
1:28 – The teens in the Teens Cook Real Food videos were really learning to cook as we went! And there were a lot of mistakes – on film. I pushed them hard to show them how to try new things and not perfectly follow a recipe.
2:50 – Just like Chef Jason McLearen, we practiced eyeing it when it comes to seasoning and spices!
3:41 – Food is probably going to taste good no matter what, so it’s okay to experiment.
4:15 – Here’s an example of what you might do to make food taste better, even if it’s not perfect (cauliflower!).
4:49 – If you’ve got a teen with perfectionist tendencies, I definitely think you should get them in the kitchen.
Resources We Mention for Overcoming Perfectionism in the Kitchen
- Teens Cook Real Food course
- Teen Tidbit 1 on ownership
- Teen Tidbit 2 on agency
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