Blog | Why You Should Let Your Child Fail, And Falter, And Learn

Growing up, many of us had the basics: roti, kapda aur makaan. Sometimes, that came with conditions. There were promises we held on to like prizes at the finish line - a new media player if we topped the class, branded sneakers or a festive outfit if we "earned" it. We learned to wait. To work toward something. To defer gratification. Patience was a life skill, not a luxury. It stretched us, sometimes uncomfortably, but it shaped us. Today, that word feels almost alien to many young children. Patience has been replaced by immediacy. Waiting replaced by wanting. Earning replaced by expecting.

From Grit to Gentle Parenting

Cut to now: we listen differently. We respond differently. We show up differently. We sit for hours listening to our children's emotional outbursts - decoding feelings, soothing anxieties, untangling invisible fears. We pause life to help them make sense of their world in a way no one ever did for us. And we find ourselves wondering: would our parents have done this, or simply asked us to "go play in the park" and figure it out?

Something has shifted. Dramatically.

Our parents built our strength through exposure: "The world is tough, become tougher." We try to build resilience through conversation: "The world is tough, talk to me about it." Neither is fully right nor fully wrong - but the swing between them is enormous.

Those of us raised before the 2000s lived through an unspoken curriculum of resilience. Emotions were private. Fear was swallowed. Pain was not a topic; it was an experience. Childhood wasn't bubble-wrapped; it was rough-edged and unedited.

Today, we parent with heightened emotional fluency. We negotiate with tantrums, reason with tears, and offer choices for everything - from food to feelings. We aren't just raising children; we are trying to give them the childhood we wish we had. In doing so, we may be healing ourselves. But are we helping them?

The Survival Gap

Our struggles built internal muscle: discomfort tolerance, resourcefulness, resilience. We fell, and no one rushed to edit the world to be softer. We failed, and no one restructured systems to make success easier. It wasn't perfect, but it built something essential: inner scaffolding.

Today, in protecting our children from struggle, we risk protecting them from strength. We clear the path instead of preparing them to walk it. We soften consequences. We step in before discomfort can harden into resilience.

Are we preparing them for the world, or preparing the world for them? Because the world will not always bend.

The Guilt We Parent With

Another layer sits quietly beneath our overprotection: guilt. We are a generation working longer hours, living under constant performance pressure, juggling homes, inboxes, commutes, deadlines, and the emotional labour of being "present" even when we are depleted. We rush through evenings, negotiate with time, and parent from the margins of professional ambition-after meetings, between calls, in the car, on borrowed energy. So we compensate. We offer softness where we cannot offer time. We say yes where a boundary should stand. We protect because we cannot always participate. And somewhere, without meaning to, we begin to soothe our guilt more than their needs. Are we comforting our children, or are we comforting ourselves?

The Safety Anxiety Generation

A significant shift in parenting today comes from the weight of safety - not just physical, but emotional and digital. The threats have multiplied and digitised: online predators and manipulated identities, bullying, body shaming, comparison culture, social media filters rewriting self-worth, a world that enters our homes long before our children enter the world outside.

So we hover. We track. We pre-screen. Not because we are controlling, but because danger feels shapeless now. Our parents feared broken bones; we fear broken identities.

Helping or Harming?

We want to raise emotionally aware children without making them emotionally fragile. We want to give them stability without denying them difficulty. We want to be their shelter without becoming their shield from life itself.

The answer isn't to harden them or soften them, but to teach them how to bend without breaking. Parenting today isn't about choosing between our childhood and theirs. It's about learning to stand in the space between.

Where Are We Erring?

Perhaps in confusing protection with preparation. Perhaps in cushioning every fall instead of teaching how to stand. Perhaps in loving them so much that we forget the world won't.

I'm not criticising any style of parenting. As parents, we're learning every day - imperfectly, instinctively, lovingly. But looking back, it feels like parenting may have been simpler when we were growing up.

Or perhaps, like everything in life, the grass is always greener where memory waters it.

(The author is Consulting Editor, NDTV, and a parent)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author