We are raising children in a world that increasingly demands they be tough, yet offers them very little guidance on how to be kind. We tell boys to toughen up, never back down, fight their battles and learn to survive in a big, bad world. We tell girls to be careful, adjust, tolerate and learn to protect themselves. Somewhere between these contradictory instructions, we seem to have forgotten to teach children the most fundamental lessons of being human: kindness, compassion, dignity and mutual respect.

The recent incident at a government school in Sector 20, Panchkula, Haryana, India, is a disturbing reminder of how fragile childhood has become. An eight-year-old boy allegedly lured a six-year-old girl into an empty classroom and subjected her to a horrific assault, repeatedly striking her with objects, banging her head against furniture and kicking her. The child sustained serious injuries and was hospitalized. She has since been reported to be out of danger. The incident has also raised serious questions about supervision and child safety within the school.

What makes this episode particularly unsettling is the age of the children involved. At eight, a child should be learning to share, resolve disagreements and understand the feelings of others. At six, a little girl should be worrying about playtime, friendships and the next school holiday, not recovering from a violent assault.

The reported explanation that the girl had teased the boy raises uncomfortable questions, although his motives remain subject to investigation and psychological assessment. How does a child’s response to perceived humiliation become so disproportionate? Where does this inability to manage frustration come from? And why are we increasingly encountering instances of children expressing anger in ways that seem completely disconnected from their years?

Perhaps we need to revisit the way we raise both our sons and daughters.

For generations, boys have been encouraged to display toughness as a measure of masculinity. Crying is weakness, apologizing is surrender and walking away from a confrontation is sometimes interpreted as cowardice. A boy who fights is occasionally celebrated for standing his ground, while one who expresses vulnerability is told to behave like a man. These seemingly harmless instructions can become deeply damaging when children grow up believing that aggression is a legitimate expression of strength.

But the problem does not end with boys. Girls must not be raised to believe that respect means submission or that being good means tolerating disrespect. They must equally learn to respect boundaries, acknowledge the dignity of others, take responsibility for their actions and resolve disagreements without cruelty. The objective is not to create superior boys or submissive girls. It is to raise equal human beings who understand that neither gender is entitled to dominate the other.

Parents and societies often justify emotional hardening by invoking the realities of the world. Children are told that life is difficult, people are unkind and they must learn to defend themselves. But there is a significant difference between teaching resilience and teaching emotional indifference. Resilience helps a child recover from adversity. Emotional hardening can teach a child to dismiss another person’s suffering. We want children who can withstand cruelty, but we must not inadvertently raise children who become cruel themselves.

The Netflix series *Adolescence* brought this uncomfortable conversation into millions of homes. Its portrayal of a 13-year-old boy accused of murdering a female classmate exposed the disturbing influence of online misogyny, toxic masculinity and digital communities that encourage resentment towards women. For many parents, it was an eye-opener. It revealed how little they sometimes know about the conversations, content and ideologies their children encounter online. A child sitting quietly in a bedroom may be absorbing messages that directly contradict everything being taught at home. The series made one thing abundantly clear: parenting cannot end at providing food, education and shelter. It must include understanding the emotional and digital worlds our children inhabit.

The tragedy in Southport, Britain, in July 2024, where a 17-year-old attacked a children’s dance workshop, killing three young girls and injuring several others, further exposed the devastating consequences of missed warning signs and institutional failures. An independent inquiry subsequently identified serious shortcomings in how information about the perpetrator’s violent preoccupations was handled. These incidents are different in their circumstances, but they remind us that childhood violence cannot be dismissed as an isolated behavioral problem.

There is another disturbing dimension to this crisis that deserves equal attention: the growing vulnerability of children to sexual predators, grooming and exploitation. Paedophilic offending is not confined to shadowy corners of society. Abuse can occur within familiar environments, through trusted adults, institutions and increasingly through digital platforms. Children are approached, manipulated, coerced and exploited by people who understand their vulnerability.

A UNICEF report published in September 2026 estimated that 20 million children aged 12 to 17 across 21 countries experienced technology-facilitated sexual exploitation or abuse in a single year. Many never reported what happened to them. This is a frightening indication of the world children are navigating.

We must not confuse sexual predation with childhood aggression or assume that one explains the other. However, both expose a society that is failing to establish and protect the boundaries children need. The normalization of violence, the objectification of girls, the exploitation of innocence and the absence of meaningful safeguards create an environment in which children are increasingly unsafe. Even the youngest are not spared.

The world is becoming an increasingly complicated place for children, yet our expectations of them remain remarkably simplistic. We expect them to be resilient, obedient, competitive and successful, often without giving them the emotional tools to navigate disappointment, anger, rejection and conflict.

Perhaps it is time to abandon the idea that toughness is the greatest gift we can give our children. Teach boys to respect girls, and girls to respect boys. Teach both to recognize boundaries, apologies, forgive, disagree without humiliating and stand up for themselves without diminishing others. Teach them that compassion is not weakness and kindness is not surrender.

Children everywhere deserve more than survival. They deserve safe classrooms, protected childhoods, loving homes and the opportunity to grow into adults who can contribute meaningfully to society.

A six-year-old girl in Panchkula should never have had to experience what she did. Her story must not become another passing headline, forgotten when public attention moves elsewhere.

If we continue teaching our children to prepare for a cruel world without teaching them not to become part of that cruelty, we will eventually inherit the very society we feared and that may be the greatest price of all.