The “I” that looks back at you in the mirror is a distinct, persistent sense of self that feels separate from your heartbeat and your bones. It is one of evolution’s most magnificent illusions. It is a comfort our minds construct so we can tolerate the sheer weight of existence and the confusing uncertainty of life.

In our well-intentioned efforts to promote emotional wellbeing at this school, we must face a dangerous reality: we have accidentally taught children that discomfort itself is a diagnosis. Today, a child feels anxious about exams and the adult response is increasingly, “Then you must step back.” A teenager doesn’t feel motivated and the vocabulary of therapy becomes a license to disengage. A student in Class 8 refuses to participate in a group project because it “drains their energy.” Parents often feel a sense of relief, thinking that at least my child can express emotions, while failing to notice that the child is never learning how to endure them.

By providing a diagnostic word for every setback, we are quietly raising a generation trained in victimhood. When a child’s primary goal becomes the preservation of a perfect emotional equilibrium, they stop pursuing external goals that demand discipline and risk. They begin to expect to be heard without judgment and to act without evaluating their impact on others, all under the banner of “my mental health comes first.”

But life is not an equilibrium. It is a chaotic, beautiful absurdity. When we parent for maximum comfort—rushing to school to contest a low grade or shielding a child from the stress of a competitive sports day—we steal their ability to absorb uncertainty. Our grandparents studied under creaking fans, traveled in overcrowded buses, and lived with noise, heat, and unpredictability. They did not call this trauma; they called it life.

They built resilience not because they suppressed emotion, but because they did not center their entire identity around it. They knew that anxiety is not always a defect to be eliminated because it is often a signal that something matters. Boredom is not pathology; instead, it is the doorway to curiosity. Failure is not damage. It is feedback.

There is a deeper cost to this culture of comfort. When every challenge is filtered through the lens of emotional safety, children stop wondering about existence itself. They no longer ask, “What is worth doing even if it is hard?” They only ask, “How do I feel right now?” Life shrinks from a horizon into a mirror.

Awareness is not the enemy, but its misuse is. Mental health must help children live more fully, not retreat more intelligently. We must teach them that discomfort is not always danger, that uncertainty is not always injustice, and that meaning is built through effort, not declared through feelings.

The absurdity of life is not a threat. It is life’s liberation. When children understand this, they stop seeing themselves as fragile victims of experience and begin to see themselves as capable authors of it. That is not harsh parenting. That is honest education.