The child was only sixteen, but his rage burned like a wildfire. Desks lay overturned, windows shattered, and the staffroom still smelled of smoke from the burned exercise books. Hours earlier, he had been part of a “small protest” that turned into a school-wide rampage. Now he sat in a police station, shoulders slumped, staring blankly at the floor. His parents arrived furious not at their son, but at the school. “How could you traumatize our child like this?” they demanded. That “child” had just thrown stones at his teachers. Yet in his parents’ eyes, he was still the innocent victim of a harsh world that needed to be softened on his behalf.
We are slowly discovering a painful truth: when you remove every thorn from a child’s path, you do not grow a rose you grow a plant that cannot survive a single dry season. Many modern parents confuse love with constant rescue, protection with over control, and care with endless indulgence. They cushion every fall, polish away every scratch, and negotiate away every consequence. The result is a generation that feels powerful on social media, but powerless in real life; loud in anger, but weak in endurance. These are children who have never been allowed to be bored, never allowed to fail, never allowed to sit with uncomfortable feelings. So when life finally says “no” through a strict teacher, low grade, or denied privilege they do not bend. They break. Or worse, they break things.
A child who never hears “you are wrong” at home will interpret any correction at school as an insult. A child who never has to wait will treat every delay as injustice. A child who never does chores will see work as punishment, not preparation. We are raising sons and daughters who can argue for hours online but cannot wake up early for class. They can demand “rights” fluently but stumble when asked about “responsibilities.” They know how to threaten a strike but not how to start a study group. In trying to protect them from discomfort, we have accidentally stolen from them the very tools they need to handle life: patience, resilience, respect, and emotional control.
True love does not mean placing your child in a glass box; it means equipping them to walk through a world full of glass and not be cut by every shard. Small tasks at home sweeping, washing dishes, caring for younger siblings are not punishment. They are training grounds for adulthood. Disappointment is not cruelty. It is a classroom where humility, empathy, and persistence are taught. A low grade is not the end of the world; it is the world saying, “Try again, but differently.” When we rush to fight every battle for our children, we teach them that shouting is more powerful than thinking, that blaming is easier than changing, and that someone else will always clean up their mess.
If schools are burning, it is often because homes are avoiding fire drills. Parents cannot delegate character formation to teachers, principals, or police officers. By the time a psychologist meets a student in crisis, that child has already walked a long road of small, uncorrected choices. The solution is not simply harsher discipline or more security guards in schools. It is courage in living rooms. It is parents who can say “no” and hold that line. It is guardians who can love their children enough to let them face the natural weight of their actions. It is families that model apology, self-control, and respect long before a child ever signs a school admission form.
We do not need more children who are experts at avoiding difficulty. We need children who can carry the weight of their own decisions, who can feel anger without exploding, who can disagree without destroying, who can fail without giving up. That kind of child does not emerge by accident. They are shaped, slowly and deliberately, by adults who understand that a comfortable childhood without responsibility is a debt that adulthood will collect with interest. The real question for every parent is simple: are you raising a child who can survive without you, or a child who will collapse the moment life refuses to move out of their way?
Dr. Yusuf Muchelule is a Senior Lecturer & a Consultant.
