Not long ago, Malaysia woke up to heartbreaking news: a 14-year-old boy was charged with murdering his 16-year-old schoolmate inside a secondary school toilet in Petaling Jaya. The whole country was shocked. A child taking another child’s life, it’s something none of us can fully comprehend.
While investigations are still ongoing, this tragedy forces us to face a painful question: what is happening to our young generation? How can someone so young lose control to such an extent?
Maybe the problem didn’t begin that day in school. Maybe it started much earlier, with how our society is raising children today.
It’s undeniable that kids today live in much more comfortable conditions compared to the past. Many parents who grew up with little now have the means to give their children a better life. With smaller families, one or two kids instead of five or six. There’s more money, more attention, and more opportunities to provide.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to give your children the best. It comes from love, after all. But sometimes, love can become overprotection. When kids grow up always getting what they want, they start to believe that the world will always say “yes.”
And when life finally says “no,” they don’t know how to handle it.
We’ve raised a generation that knows how to receive but not how to recover. They understand comfort, but not discomfort. They know success, but not failure.
The Disappearance of Tough Love
In the past, parents and teachers were strict. We got scolded, sometimes even caned. It wasn’t pleasant, but it taught us boundaries and responsibility.
Today, things have changed completely.
Now, we hear about “love-based education” and “positive reinforcement.” The old methods are replaced with gentler ones. No more rotan, no harsh scolding, just soft guidance and encouragement. It sounds ideal, but when overdone, it takes away an important lesson: consequences.
When children grow up without facing consequences, they don’t learn how to process failure. When every mistake is quickly forgiven or fixed by adults, they miss the chance to develop resilience.
Parents today face a tougher world, too. They’re juggling work, stress, and expectations while trying to raise emotionally healthy kids. But in trying to protect their children from pain, many end up shielding them from growth.
When Failure Feels Like the End
We often teach children to chase success, to dream big, to never give up, but we forget to teach them how to lose.
We tell them to aim high, but not how to stand back up when they fall.
We rarely say things like:
- “It’s okay if someone rejects you.”
- “It’s okay if you’re not perfect.”
- “It’s okay to fail, as long as you learn from it.”
Instead, we rush to comfort and protect.
When they’re sad, we distract them. When they fail, we blame the system. But failure is part of life. When kids grow up without learning how to deal with “no,” every rejection feels like a personal attack.
And when the emotional pain becomes too heavy, in studies, in friendships, or in love, some simply can’t handle it. That’s when tragedies happen.
We Need to Bring Back Balance
This isn’t about going back to the old days of harsh discipline. It’s about balance between love and limits, between comfort and challenge.
Children need to fall. They need to feel disappointment. They need to be told “no.” Because that’s how they build the strength to handle the bigger “no’s” in adulthood.
Love doesn’t mean removing all the obstacles in their way. Sometimes, love means standing beside them and saying, “You’ll get through this. I won’t fix it for you, but I’ll walk with you.”
If we can raise a generation that knows how to fail and still move forward, then maybe we’ll see fewer young hearts giving up too soon.
Because life will never be smooth forever.
And when it gets tough, what we need most is not comfort.
It’s resilience.
Felicia Yoan (feliciayoan11@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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