Yesterday, I watched a disturbing news report about a six-year-old school child who reportedly died after being physically punished by a primary school teacher for not completing homework. What disturbed me was not only the act itself. It was the fear.
The child was frightened. The other children watching were frightened. An entire classroom appeared to be silently learning something that no child should have to learn: that school can sometimes be a place to fear.
It took me back to my own school days.
I remember being hit with a wooden scale by a teacher while doing homework in class. I also remember watching one of my classmates being severely beaten by our mathematics teacher for misbehaving. Even today, when I think about it, the teacher’s behaviour felt less like discipline and more like someone practising for a boxing match with a poor ninth-standard child.
At that age, we probably accepted it as normal.
We were children.
We did not know any better.
But after growing older, going through different phases of life and slowly understanding the law of cause and effect, I have begun to see something differently.
Many painful experiences in life can be prevented much earlier.
Sometimes the problem is not created at the moment when a teacher loses control. The causes may have been building up much before that.
- A stressed teacher.
- A school that has not trained its teachers in positive discipline.
- Parents constantly running behind work and deadlines.
- Children growing up without enough time to talk, reflect and emotionally settle down.
- Traffic, time pressure, financial pressure, gadgets, television, competition, homework and the constant feeling that everyone has to remain busy.
And somewhere in the middle of all this, there is a child trying to understand the world.
Are We Too Busy for the People Who Need Us?
If you are a parent and have even the slightest doubt that you are not spending enough quality time with your children, perhaps it is worth stopping and thinking.
Not quitting everything. Not abandoning financial responsibility.
But slowing down and asking a difficult question:
What exactly are we working so hard for?
Sometimes we tell ourselves that once we have ₹5 crore in the bank, we will slow down. The truth is, life may not wait for that day. Your child will not remain six, ten or fourteen forever.
The time you miss with your young children cannot be earned back later. You may be paying ₹10,000 or ₹20,000 for the best daycare facility. You may provide the best toys, gadgets, schools and experiences. But there are some things money cannot replace.
No facility can completely replace a mother’s lap. No service can completely replace a father’s shoulders.
Of course, every family has different circumstances. Many parents work because they have to, not because they want to stay away from their children. This is not about judging them.
It is about consciously asking ourselves whether our lifestyle is truly necessary or whether we have simply become trapped in the race of earning, spending and becoming busy for the sake of being busy.
The first responsibility is to ensure that the family’s cash flow is intact. We should not be irresponsible. But perhaps we also need to look at our expenses.
Are we earning more because the family genuinely needs it? Or are we earning more to support a lifestyle that keeps demanding even more from us?
Sometimes slowing down begins not with earning more, but with needing less.
What My Parents Gave Us
My parents earned three-digit monthly salaries and raised four children. All four of us completed engineering degrees and are now settled in our lives. We did not grow up surrounded by endless material comforts. We lived with grandparents and other family members. There was usually someone at home.
Someone to ask: “What happened at school today?”
Someone to say: “Come, eat something.”
Someone to teach us, correct us and simply be around.
I still remember my grandmother asking me about my day. Looking back, I realise that those small moments were not small at all. I am deeply grateful to my parents for giving us everything they could, within their limited resources.
They may not have been able to give us everything money could buy. But they gave us something equally important.
Presence.
In many homes today, when a child comes back from school, who receives them?
If your child has you, a grandparent or another loving family member waiting to hear about their day, that is a blessing. A domestic helper can certainly take care of a child’s physical needs, and there is nothing wrong with having help at home. But emotional presence is different.
A child needs to know:
“When something happens to me, there is someone I can go to.”
That sense of emotional safety cannot simply be outsourced.
One of the biggest mistakes we may unknowingly make as parents is assuming that providing materially is the same as being emotionally available.
It is not.
Children Learn More From What We Do
Academic pressure is another part of this problem. As parents, we need to give children a bigger perspective about marks, examinations and failure.
We also need to help them practise simple habits.
- Take a deep breath.
- Close your eyes for a moment. Slow down.
- Talk about what is worrying you.
- Put the phone away.
- Turn off the television. Sit together.
Children rarely follow everything we tell them. But they observe almost everything we do.
- If we want our children to know how to calm down, they need to see us calm down.
- If we want them to reduce screen time, they need to see us put our gadgets away.
If we want them to spend time with family, we need to make family time important enough to protect.
Even one day every week. Make it a rule.
No unnecessary work. No endless scrolling.
Just family. Talk. Eat. Play. Walk. Laugh.
Ask your child what happened in their world.
And then listen.
A Message to Teachers
If you are a teacher reading this, please remember something. Every child sitting in your classroom has been entrusted to you. You may not know what that child is going through at home. You may not know what fears they carry.
You may not know which words from you they will remember for the rest of their lives. Discipline is necessary. Correction is necessary.
But fear should never become the tool of education.
Positive discipline requires patience, boundaries, consistency and consequences. It does not require violence. Before raising your hand against a child, pause for one moment and imagine that child as your own.
- Imagine receiving a call that your child was beaten in school.
- Imagine watching that child come home frightened.
How would you feel?
The authority given to a teacher is not a licence to hurt. It is a responsibility to shape.
It Is Not Just One Person’s Failure
When a tragedy like this happens, it is easy to point at one person.
The teacher.
But perhaps we need to look at the entire ecosystem.
- The teacher who lost control.
- The school that may have failed to train and support the teacher.
- The systems that measure performance but sometimes ignore emotional wellbeing.
- The families under constant financial and social pressure.
- The parents who may themselves be exhausted and overwhelmed.
- The children who are growing up without learning how to pause, breathe and regulate their emotions.
- The roads, traffic and daily chaos that consume hours of our lives.
- The culture of constant busyness.
- The belief that slowing down means falling behind.
The ecosystem failed.
And somewhere in that ecosystem, a six-year-old child paid the price.
We cannot change what has already happened. But perhaps we can change what happens in our homes, classrooms and schools from tomorrow.
Spend time with your children.
Teach them how to slow down.
Show them how to handle pressure.
Correct them without breaking their confidence.
And before we become too busy chasing the future, let us make sure we are not missing the people who are standing beside us in the present.
My prayers are with the little one and the family.
No parent should have to lose a child like this. And no child should ever be afraid to go to school.
P.S.: Sometimes, I wish more parents had read my book, I’m NOT Busy, and somehow encouraged their children to read the Hippo Dippo Jumbo Toolbox Series: I’m Brave, Bro!, I’m Curious, Bro!, I’m Strong, Bro! and I’m Rich, Bro!. Checkout
The very reason I wrote them was simple.
If these books could help save even one child, strengthen even one family, or change one life in a positive way, I would consider the journey worthwhile.
Perhaps that was the reason I started writing in the first place.
To save that one child. To save that one family.
Thank you. 🙏
