Do Kids Need Therapy? Signs That Parents Often Miss
Dec 16, 2025By Tanvi Munjal
Let's talk about something that's happening right now, every single day, to kids all over the internet. And it's not pretty.
Remember Ishit Bhatt? The 10-year-old who appeared on KBC and said "Mujhe rules pata hain" to Amitabh Bachchan? Within hours, he wasn't just a kid on a game show anymore. He became "that rude kid." "That overconfident brat." "The example of bad parenting."
Think about that for a second. He's ten. He's in fifth grade. And suddenly, thousands of strangers are picking apart everything about him, including his tone, his words, his confidence, his upbringing, and his parents.
Here's what we forget: He's still a kid. He probably got nervous. Maybe he was trying to seem brave on national TV. But the internet doesn't care about context. It cares about the clip. The moment. The meme.
What Actually Happens to These Kids
When a kid goes viral for the "wrong" reasons, the damage starts fast.
- They see themselves through millions of eyes. Every comment, every joke, every critique becomes a mirror showing a twisted version of one moment in their life.
- Their phone becomes a weapon. Every notification could be another insult. Another share. Another stranger telling them they're spoiled, rude, or stupid. Kids check their phones hundreds of times a day anyway. Now imagine each time is potential pain.
- They lose control of their own story. That video doesn't belong to them anymore. It belongs to everyone. The kid can't delete it. Can't take it back. Can't explain. The internet has decided who they are.
The Long-Term Damage
- Trust gets destroyed. How do you trust public spaces again when the world turned on you for one imperfect moment? These kids learn to never fully relax, always monitoring: "Will this get me trolled?"
- Their identity gets frozen. Ishit will be "the rude KBC kid" for years, maybe forever. When he applies to college. When he meets new people. That moment follows him like a shadow he never asked for.
- They learn the wrong lessons. "Being myself is dangerous." "The internet is always watching." "I deserved it." They carry shame for being human.
How Kids Get Twisted by This
When thousands of people tell a kid they're a certain way, the kid starts to believe it.
If everyone calls you arrogant, you might become withdrawn and scared to show confidence ever again. If everyone says you're "cringe," you stop trying things. You stop being creative.
The internet literally shapes these kids' personalities, not through guidance, but through mass mockery.
Why It's Worse for Kids
- Their brains aren't ready for this. A 10-year-old doesn't have the emotional tools to process mass hate. They don't have the perspective to think, "This will pass." They just feel the pain, raw and unfiltered.
- They can't escape. School is online. Friends are online. Entertainment is online. Their entire social world exists in the place where they're being mocked.
- It happens during identity formation. These are the years when kids figure out who they are. When they're supposed to experiment and make mistakes. But how do you do that when one experiment got you nationally humiliated?
- The power imbalance is insane. It's thousands of adults versus one kid. Adults with platforms attacking a child who said something imperfect on TV.
What Daily Life Looks Like
Let us paint you a picture of what life becomes for a trolled kid:
- Monday morning: Kids whisper. Someone yells "Mujhe rules pata hain!" across the hallway.
- Lunchtime: New comments on old posts. "Aren't u that rude kid lol"
- After school: Can't raise his hand in class without wondering if he sounds too confident.
- Night: Scrolling through new reaction videos. New compilations. Brutal comments. He wants to stop looking, but he can't.
This is his new normal. And he's ten.
The Ripple Effects
This doesn't just affect the kid who went viral. It affects every kid watching.
- Other kids learn to fear visibility. They see what happened and think, "Never put yourself out there. Never be bold."
- They learn that cruelty is entertainment. They're being trained that someone else's pain is everyone's punchline.
- They develop pre-emptive shame. Even kids who've never been trolled start worrying about it. They're haunted by a trolling that hasn't even happened yet.
What Actually Helps
- Someone who sees them as more than the moment. They need people who can say, "I know who you really are, and this clip doesn't define you."
- Professional help, without shame. Therapy isn't "because something's wrong with you." It's because something wrong happened to you.
- Validation that it really is that bad. Don't minimize it. "Thousands of people being cruel to you IS traumatic. Your feelings make sense."
- Taking breaks from the internet. Not as punishment, but as protection. Sometimes you need to stop drinking from the poison well.
Conclusion
Being trolled can mess up a kid in ways we're only beginning to understand. The psychological costs are real: anxiety that lasts years, trust issues, depression, identity shaped by strangers' cruelty, and a permanent record of their worst moment.
We're at a point where we need to decide what kind of internet we want. One where a 10-year-old being impatient on TV becomes a villain? Or one where kids get protection, grace, and space to be imperfect?
Right now, we're choosing the first option. And the kids are paying the price.
Every time you see a clip of a kid going viral for the "wrong" reasons, remember: that's not a meme. That's a child whose life just got incredibly hard. Every share, every comment, every laugh makes it harder.
Ishit is someone's son. Someone's classmate. Someone's friend. A person with dreams and fears, just like everyone who trolled him.
We can do better. We have to.
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