Before You Judge, Remember - The Child Is Only Ten

A 10-year-old boy on Kaun Banega Crorepati has somehow become the nation’s newest headline.

Ishit Bhatt, a bright, confident participant from Gujarat, walked onto the KBC stage with all the charm and energy that comes naturally to many children his age. Within minutes, however, a clip of him interrupting Amitabh Bachchan saying “Mujhe rules pata hain” exploded across the internet.

In less than a day, Ishit was branded “arrogant,” “disrespectful,” “spoilt,” “overconfident.”

And in that moment, we forgot one simple truth: he’s still just a child.

Yes, He Was Overconfident. But He Was Also Just Being Ten.

Let’s be honest. Yes, Ishit was slightly overconfident. He interrupted, he asserted himself, maybe a little too much for comfort on national television. But that’s also what many ten-year-olds do.

Children at that age are testing limits of language, authority, and attention. They’re experimenting with how confidence feels, how curiosity sounds, and how adults respond to it. Sometimes it comes out as endearing; sometimes as impatient. That doesn’t make them disrespectful, it just makes them children.

How many of us have seen our own kids behave the same way at home, excitedly cutting us mid-sentence, saying “I know!” before we finish a line?

Would we call that arrogance? Or would we call it innocence in motion?

The Pressure of National Television

Now, imagine doing all that but under hundreds of lights, with cameras zooming in, the audience clapping, a production crew whispering in the background, and millions watching across the country.

Even adults falter under that kind of spotlight. For a ten-year-old, that’s an emotional rollercoaster few of us could handle gracefully.nIn that rush of adrenaline and excitement, it’s natural for a child to speak faster, act bolder, or try to sound “grown-up.”

So when Ishit blurted things out or tried to take control of the moment, it wasn’t arrogance it was a child trying to hold his ground in front of a nation that suddenly felt too big.

In Eight Minutes, We Tagged a Child for Life

What unfolded online after the KBC episode wasn’t just discussion it was digital lynching. People mocked his tone, insulted his parents, and ridiculed his upbringing. Some even declared that this “kid needs lessons in humility.”

Let’s take a step back. In eight minutes of edited television, how much can we truly know about a child’s personality? We didn’t see his pre-show jitters, his excitement at meeting a legend, or the nerves hidden behind bravado. Yet we decided who he is, how his parents raised him, and what kind of adult he will become all from a few viral seconds.

The Internet’s Quick Judgement Is Not a Child’s Burden

Social media has blurred our sense of proportion. A child’s natural curiosity or self-assurance is now seen through the lens of adult expectation. We expect miniature adults perfectly polite, media-trained, emotionally aware, camera-ready children.

But they are not that. They are learning - awkwardly, beautifully, imperfectly. And when we project adult judgments onto childlike behaviour, we aren’t “correcting” them; we are crushing them. Behind every viral clip is a family trying to shield their child from noise they never invited.

The psychological cost that comes with it is the shame, anxiety, and confusion which can be long-lasting.

Confidence Is Not Arrogance, the Innocence Still Exists

What’s heartbreaking is how few people paused to see the innocence in Ishit’s demeanour. That same assertiveness could have been read as enthusiasm as a little boy trying to impress Mr Amitabh Bachan. 

Instead, it was weaponised as arrogance. If we, as a society, keep punishing confidence in children, we risk raising a generation too afraid to speak, too careful to be authentic, too filtered to be real.

What This Teaches Us as Parents, Viewers, and Citizens

• Pause before you post. Ask yourself, would I say this to a child’s face?
• Separate the act from the identity. A child’s behaviour in one moment doesn’t define who they are.
• See the whole child. Not the meme, not the clip but the actual ten-year-old who probably went home feeling small.
• Model empathy. Our reactions are lessons too to our own children, to society at large.

A Final Word from One Parent to Another

Every child deserves the space to stumble, to learn, to be unfiltered. If Ishit Bhatt had spoken with timid silence, we’d say “kids today lack confidence.” If he speaks with energy, we say “kids today have no manners.”

Maybe the problem isn’t with the kids. Maybe the problem is with us with how quick we are to criticise, and how slow we are to understand. Let’s not dim a child’s light because it flickered a little too brightly on national television.

Let’s protect the very innocence we claim to miss.