In today's world, many parents are making great efforts to ensure their children never have to face the struggles they once endured. With the mindset of “My child should have everything I couldn’t,” they are often keeping their children far from hardship. As a result, children are missing out on the kind of effort that instills dignity in labor.

Modern kids are handed every comfort, countless classes, and extra-curricular options. Their personal time is nearly nonexistent. Just as sugarcane is crushed dry in a press, some children too are being drained of their essence.

Where is their freedom today?

Personality development is a deeply personal, inward process. Creativity sprouts from within and flourishes in both favorable and challenging environments. A plant can’t survive with excess water, and likewise, children don’t need everything handed to them on a silver platter. Joy only truly enters life when it walks hand in hand with struggle.

Children today often lack proper study routines. Their day is governed more by cartoons, IPL matches, and video games, with studies coming last. Without nurturing influences to guide them, life tends to take a dangerous detour—sometimes to a point of no return.

Many children live inside mental shells, unable to adjust to or communicate with society. Under the pressure of fulfilling their parents’ dreams and expectations, some fall into depression, while others become indulgent. For many, cities like Kota feel like cremation grounds—not centers of growth. When the world around a child begins to collapse, it's hard for them to maintain balance in life.

There are alarming stories: knives and condoms found in children’s schoolbags. If there are no values surrounding a child, the vacuum is filled by gangs and toxic influences.

When a person cannot prove themselves, they often surrender to circumstances and seek to grab joy in whatever form they can.

Today, children experience adolescence in their childhood, and youth experience old age too early.

Digital media has become a living force, no longer just a passive presence. Our children are regularly exposed to gun violence on TV, perform vulgar dances during school functions, and live immersed in virtual worlds of cartoons and games.

Schools, once centers of moral teaching, now seem to have discarded discipline and values. Instances of violence, bullying, and ragging—once seen only in colleges—are now found in schools. It raises a serious concern: has value education disappeared entirely? While schools are partly responsible, much of the problem starts at home. The family unit is weakening, and overuse of mobile devices is isolating children, cutting them off from healthy cultural exposure.

When children are exposed only to cultural distortions, those are the very behaviors they imitate.

The emotional and social environment of both home and community directly shapes a child's personality. In one school, condoms and syringes were discovered. Teachers, burdened with non-teaching tasks like surveys, are unable to devote time to students, and the consequences are tragic.

Children still carry heavy school bags. They are sleep-deprived. At home, parents are too busy to engage. If communication is absent and conflicts are common, the child becomes irritable and withdrawn.

When parents return home, they should embrace their children lovingly. But instead, they turn to their phones. Children, in turn, look for other escapes.

This feeling of neglect and insecurity pulls children toward dangerous temptations.

Relationships and kinship are disappearing from a child’s world. They don’t know their uncles, aunts, or cousins—not even the words, let alone the relationships.

There is no one to understand their emotions, no safe space to express feelings. Without timely emotional release, personality development is stunted.

Today, rude speech and uncivil behavior are becoming mainstream. Mocking others has become the norm. Children see and absorb all this.

Bullying, a form of youth violence, has become rampant. It causes harm physically, mentally, socially, and academically. Cyberbullying has added another dangerous dimension. In countries like the United States, bullying is widespread. It negatively impacts all youth, but those who both bully and get bullied suffer the worst consequences—especially mental health issues.

Can we prevent bullying?

Will we ever be able to?

Children should be surrounded by meaningful, inspiring literature.

But since parents are always on their phones, they allow children to do the same. Emotional development should happen at home, and its absence makes children emotionally dry and blunt.

Parents who sacrificed their comfort, took loans, and sent their children abroad now die alone—while their children watch the funeral over video calls. Career has overtaken relationships.

Many grandparents now live in loneliness. Though the family may be rich, they are poor in human connection.

Even today’s cinema contributes to this downfall—spreading violence and obscenity instead of values.

Earlier, films and books inspired us. Films like Shyamchi Aai raised generations with values. Songs like “Tu Hindu Banega Na Musalman Banega, Insaan Ki Aulad Hai, Insaan Banega” taught unity and humanity.

Now, no one teaches anything.

People are ruining children by leaving them to figure it out on their own—without guidance.

Everything has fallen apart.

And because we've drifted from value education, society is paying the price.

If we want to rebuild, it will take work.

We all—parents, teachers, institutions, and society—must reflect deeply and act responsibly on both thought and conduct.

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