Meenu Gupta
mguptadps@gmail.com
The recent suicides of school-going children- including the deeply painful case from a Jaipur school and the Delhi Metro incident have left the nation shaken and questioning. These tragedies are not isolated events, they are warnings that our children are silently drowning under pressures they cannot name and emotions they cannot navigate. At an age when they should be laughing, exploring, and learning fearlessly, many children today are battling invisible wounds. It is time we acknowledge a difficult truth: something is terribly wrong in the way we are raising and educating our children.
Today’s child has become a carrier of worries far beyond their age. Their days are filled with competition, comparisons, social media expectations, performance pressure, and fear of disappointing adults. Childhood, once filled with curiosity and wonder, is slowly being replaced with anxiety and emotional exhaustion. When these pressures combine with loneliness or a lack of a safe outlet to express themselves, even a minor setback can feel like the end of the road. These recent tragedies force us to urgently ask: How did we let it reach this point?
Inside many schools across India, children often walk on a tightrope of academic expectations. Marks decide their worth. Ranks decide their identity. This overemphasis on academic success has created a generation that measures their value with a number. Unfortunately, our schools lack robust emotional support systems. A single counsellor for thousands of children cannot possibly address the complexity of young minds. Teachers, too, often receive no training in child psychology or mental health. Without guidance, a hurried remark, public scolding, or comparison can unknowingly crush a sensitive child. What schools need is not more rules but more warmth, more listening, and more understanding. They must become safe emotional spaces where children can open up about their fears, failures, confusion, and struggles. Schools should actively celebrate all talents – sports, art, music, theatre, creativity – so that every child feels valued for who they are, not just for what they score.
Our schools must urgently shift their focus from marks alone to the overall wellbeing of the child. Academic learning cannot thrive if a student is emotionally exhausted or silently struggling. Schools need to prioritise mental health education just as seriously as mathematics or science. This means giving children access to trained counsellors, creating weekly sessions that teach them how to manage stress, build resilience, express feelings, and ask for help without shame. It also means reducing the obsession with constant testing and allowing space for curiosity, creativity, outdoor activities, and meaningful discussions. A truly successful education system is one that shapes healthy minds – not just high scorers.
If we want emotionally strong and balanced children , our schools must go beyond textbooks and timetables. We need classrooms where emotional learning becomes as natural as academic learning. Imagine beginning each day with a few minutes of quiet reflection – helping students pause, breathe, and acknowledge what they are feeling. Imagine teachers creating spaces where children can talk about worries without fear, where mistakes are treated with kindness, and where every child feels seen and valued. Schools can introduce regular sessions on resilience, empathy, self-esteem, and conflict resolution, woven into the weekly routine . Peer-support groups, mindfulness breaks, and collaborative activities can teach children the most important life skill: understanding themselves and others. When schools consciously build such nurturing environments, they don’t just prepare students for exams – they prepare them for life. They shape confident, calm, and compassionate young citizens who can manage pressure, handle setbacks, and grow with courage and balance.
But schools alone cannot carry the responsibility. Home, the first and most permanent classroom, shapes the child far more deeply. Many children fear their parents more than their mistakes. The subtle pressure to be perfect, to perform, to match others, or to fulfil unspoken expectations can quietly choke their emotional wellbeing. Many parents talk to their children only in the language of results and expectations. Conversations often turn into interrogations – “Why did you score less?”, “Why can’t you be like others?”, “What will people say?” These questions don’t open doors; they shut them.
What children truly long to hear are softer, honest words of support – “Are you okay?”, “Tell me what’s troubling you,””I am here for you, no matter what.” It is not perfect parenting that strengthens a child; it is present parenting. Emotional availability – the simple act of listening without judgement – gives children the courage to open up, to trust, and to believe in themselves. This is what builds strong, confident, and emotionally secure young minds.
We must also remember that comparison is one of the biggest silent killers of childhood confidence. No two children are meant to walk the same path. When we compare siblings, cousins, or classmates, we unknowingly plant seeds of insecurity and inadequacy. Every child has a different mind, different strengths, and different dreams – and it is our duty to help them discover who they truly are, not who we want them to be.
Our children need something simple yet powerful: the courage to speak and the freedom to be themselves. They need to know that mistakes do not define them, failures do not finish them, and asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness. We must build a generation that is emotionally resilient, confident, and hopeful – not fearful and burdened.
As a society, we cannot wait for another tragedy to start caring. Every time a child chooses death over life, the loss is not just personal; it is collective. It is a mirror showing us that the systems around them – schools, families, communities – failed to protect them. We must rebuild these systems with compassion, empathy, and awareness.
We need to create classrooms where students are heard, not judged.
Homes where conversations replace criticisms.
Schools where wellbeing is as important as marks.
And a world where every child knows, deep inside, “My life matters. My voice matters. I matter.” If saving even one child requires us to rethink the entire system, then this rethink is not just important – it is urgent. It is the only way forward.
(The author is Vice Principal DPS Jammu/ CBSE Resource Person)
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