As I sit and reflect, my mind travels back to a moment from when I was ten years old. A moment that may look small from the outside, but quietly stayed with me. I was cooking a curry at school to earn my cooking badge for Little Maids. It was the first curry I had ever cooked in my life. I remember feeling proud, excited, and a little nervous. I was doing something new, something grown-up, something that mattered to me.
The Moment of Confusion
We were asked to bring our curries for tasting. Other students had buns or rice. I did not. I did not know I was supposed to. When my turn came, the teacher tasted my curry with a spoon and said, “This is good.” A few seconds later, she added, “But you did not bring a bun, so it is not as tasty as it should be.”
At ten years old, my mind could not understand this contradiction. Was it good, or was it not? I stood there confused. I did not know what rule I had broken, or when it was explained. No one clarified. No one asked. The words stayed hanging, unfinished.
The Badge That Wasn’t Given
Badges were handed out. Everyone received one. I did not. That one missing badge meant I could not get the slash when all my friends completed theirs. It was not explained as feedback. It was not framed as learning. It was just an absence. Silence. Exclusion. I walked away not feeling that my curry failed, but feeling that I did.
What the Mind Learns
Psychologically, this is how quiet beliefs are formed. A child does not analyse systems or fairness. A child internalises. When effort is met with mixed messages, the mind does not think, “I forgot the bun.” It thinks, “What I did was not enough.” Confusion becomes self-doubt. Praise followed by withdrawal teaches the mind to stay alert instead of being confident.
Many adults carry similar moments. They struggle with seeking approval, fear of evaluation, or feeling they must get everything right. Often, the root is not a major trauma, but repeated small experiences where effort was not clearly acknowledged.
Emotionally, confusion hurts more than criticism. When a child cannot make sense of feedback, safety is lost. The nervous system remembers that uncertainty. Even years later, the body remembers the feeling of standing there, waiting, not knowing why something was taken away.
An Islamic Reflection
From an Islamic perspective, this moment reflects the importance of intention and mercy. Islam places great value on niyyah. A sincere effort carries weight, especially from a child. The Prophet ﷺ was gentle with children, correcting with kindness, never humiliating, never discouraging. Justice in Islam is not rigid technicality; it is fairness, compassion, and understanding capacity.
Words matter deeply in Islam. A single sentence can either uplift or quietly wound. Adults are entrusted with responsibility, especially when guiding children. What we say, and how we say it, leaves marks.
Why I Reflect on This Now
I do not share this to dwell on the past. I share it because many people carry similar stories. Stories where effort was unseen. Where rules were unspoken. Where the mind learned the wrong lesson. Healing begins when we revisit these moments with awareness and remind ourselves that our worth was never meant to be measured by a bun on a plate.
In my work today, I sit with tweens and teenagers who carry the same confusion and emotions I once felt. They speak about moments where they tried, where they showed effort, and yet felt dismissed, compared, or quietly overlooked by adults they trusted. Different situations, same emotional imprint. The mind at that age absorbs these experiences deeply, often turning them into self-doubt, fear of failure, or the belief that love and approval are conditional.
Perhaps the lesson is not about what was withheld that day, but about what we can offer now—clarity instead of confusion, mercy instead of conditions, and conscious words that build rather than silently break. When we become aware of how small moments shape young minds, we are given an opportunity to respond differently and to become the safe adult many of us once needed.
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