Why are teachers walking on eggshells? Kids need to learn about responsibility as well as rights, expert says

Some schools have banned red pens to avoid hurting feelings. Educational psychologist Clare Rowe says we’ve given kids rights, but forgotten to teach them responsibility.

Walk into many classrooms today and you’ll see children more empowered than any generation before them. They know their rights: the right to be heard, to feel safe, to challenge authority. That progress is worth celebrating. But ask those same students about their responsibilities – to respect rules, accept consequences, and contribute to their community – and too often, you get silence.

We’ve created a generation armed with rights but unarmed with responsibility. And it’s starting to show.

Over recent decades, schools have worked hard to become safer, more inclusive, and more protective. Corporal punishment has gone. Bullying is taken seriously. Students can appeal grades, question teachers and advocate for their wellbeing. These are important reforms that have created safer learning environments.

But alongside these changes has come a creeping fear of imposing limits, and a deep reluctance to let children experience failure or discomfort. Somewhere along the way, the pendulum swung too far.

Psychologist Clare Rowe wants parents to take back control.

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Now, discipline is often challenged as if it were a human rights violation. Behavioural standards are softened to avoid conflict with parents.

A quiet expectation has taken hold that no one should fail, no one should be corrected, and no one should feel uncomfortable. Some schools have even banned red pens to avoid hurting feelings.

What might seem like compassion is, in truth, undermining the very foundations of resilience. Struggle is not trauma. Being told “no”, receiving consequences, or having to recover from failure are essential parts of healthy development. They teach children how to persist, adapt and grow. When we strip those lessons away, we don’t protect children, we weaken them.

As a psychologist, I see the fallout. We are raising young people who are increasingly anxious, brittle and ill-equipped for the normal ups and downs of life. Many have never been allowed to stumble, so even the smallest challenge feels catastrophic. They expect the world to accommodate them, rather than preparing to contribute to it.

Kids are bubble-wrapped, with dire consequences, says Clare Rowe. Picture: Thinkstock

Parents, often with the best intentions, have become part of the problem. I regularly see parents rushing to schools to dispute detentions or demand grade changes, acting like defence lawyers rather than partners in their child’s growth. They are terrified of their child experiencing discomfort, mistaking struggle for harm. In doing so, they deny their children something far more valuable than protection – the chance to learn that setbacks are survivable.

We’ve confused protection with preparation. We are shielding children from discomfort instead of equipping them to withstand it. And ironically, this hasn’t produced happier or more confident young people. It has produced fearful ones, quick to interpret boundaries as personal attacks and ordinary stress as trauma.

This imbalance has also eroded respect for authority in classrooms. Many teachers now tread on eggshells, worried that enforcing rules could spark complaints or social media pile-ons. Behaviour standards slip. Classrooms descend into chaos. And yet students are told they’re thriving simply because their feelings are preserved.

Rights are essential. Every child deserves safety, dignity and a voice. But rights alone do not create capable adults. Responsibility is what transforms rights into maturity and resilience. When children grow up entitled to everything and accountable for nothing, they enter adulthood unprepared for the real world and prone to collapse when life inevitably tells them “no”.

Parents need to set boundaries and uphold consequences, says Clare Rowe. iStock image

If we want to raise strong, grounded young people, we need to stop bubble-wrapping them and start challenging them. We need schools that uphold clear expectations and consequences, and parents who back them. We need to show children that rights are not shields from responsibility, but privileges that must be earned through effort, respect and contribution.

Because children don’t become resilient by being spared struggle. They become resilient by walking through it and discovering they can.

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Originally published as Why are teachers walking on eggshells? Kids need to learn about responsibility as well as rights, expert says