The outrage was swift and unrelenting, spilling across social media, office discussions and drawing room debates. At the centre of it all was an unlikely target, a 10-year-old boy whose brief moment on national television turned into a storm of criticism.

Gujarat’s Ishit Bhatt, a contestant on ‘KBC’ was branded “arrogant” and “rude” after his confident demeanour and quick responses to host Amitabh Bachchan divided viewers across the country, a PTI report stated yesterday.

During the episode, the kid asked Bachchan not to repeat the rules, answered before hearing full questions and interrupted mid-sentence — actions that many saw as disrespectful, while others viewed them as the unfiltered enthusiasm of a bright child under pressure. What followed was a nationwide debate: Was it poor parenting? The natural brashness of a bright child? Should it be ignored, as he is only ten, or should it be addressed?

The questions came fast and furious, pitching the fifth-grader into a trending topic.

An apology letter, purportedly written by Bhatt and shared on an Instagram account named @ishit_bhatt_official along with a video, was widely reported — before being pulled down with a message that the account no longer exists. Several fake accounts featuring the boy’s photograph also surfaced across social media platforms.

Everything points to a troubling lynch-mob mentality, raising concerns that such trolling and public shaming could have a lasting impact on a child at such a formative age. Experts say the reality is far more complex, shaped by changing parenting styles, evolving school cultures, and the way children today process and express themselves.

“The instant two-minute verdict is that he is rude. But that may or may not be the case,” family therapist Maitri Chand told PTI. People, she said, are judging the child’s tone, gestures and responses in a “unidimensional way.”

“Rudeness and arrogance have a cultural basis – they are culturally normed. And I don’t just mean country-wise culture. It can be a family culture, a community culture, or even a school culture,” she added.

Bhatt isn’t the first such case. In 2023, Virat Iyer, an eight-year-old from Chhattisgarh, played the game in a similar manner — answering before Bachchan could finish asking a question.

Unlike Bhatt, who went home without winning anything, Virat Iyer reached the final question for Rs 1 crore but went home with Rs 3.20 lakh after answering it incorrectly.

As Maitri Chand sees it, children of this generation are growing up in an environment that actively encourages them to be vocal and opinionated.

“Schools teach critical thinking earlier and earlier, which is fantastic. In our generation, if we were lucky, we learnt it at the master’s level. So the child may simply have been thinking fast, assuming things, responding quickly – not necessarily from a place of disrespect,” she said.

What many adults perceive as arrogance could actually be impatience born from a faster cognitive rhythm, Maitri Chand added.

Ankita Verma Mehta, an HR professional and mother, holds a different view. She believes the child’s behaviour should have been corrected at the right time.

“He feels this way of talking and demeaning is fine because it has been accepted in his past. Maybe he was praised for his confidence, which turned into overconfidence. It needs to be corrected. I would have taken him to a separate room and told him that the behaviour is wrong,” Ankita Verma Mehta said.

Maitri Chand, however, feels humility is not a construct most ten-year-olds can meaningfully grasp.

“Humility comes later in life when experience humbles us a bit,” she said.

“At his age, if you try to impose it, it can feel like stifling the child or discouraging him from voicing his thoughts,” she continued.

She also pointed out Bhatt’s response to one question – ‘Which of these meals are generally eaten in the morning?’ – may have been misread. The young contestant immediately asked Amitabh Bachchan to lock “breakfast” without hearing the options.

The options could easily have referred to different types of dishes typically served in the morning.

Is it about bad parenting? There’s no absolute answer.

“It’s larger than just parenting,” Maitri Chand explained. “We are raising children differently – to perform, to express, to be up front and centre. And then when they do that, we come down on them for being too much. That’s a contradiction.”

She added that children today receive mixed signals from society. “We want them to be go-getters, confident, verbal – but just enough to sit well with us. That’s an unfair ask.”

For clinical psychologist Shweta Sharma, the issue wasn’t confidence but gaps in social and emotional skills.

His responses, she said, reflected difficulty with “impulse control, boundary awareness and respectful communication – a pattern seen in many children today.”

Shweta Sharma added that the pressure of performing on national television opposite a towering figure like Amitabh Bachchan could have magnified the child’s behaviour.

“Excitement, adrenaline and the desire to prove oneself can all exacerbate boundary-crossing,” she said. “So instead of criticism and labels, this should be treated as an opportunity to teach emotional regulation, respect for social norms and adaptive assertiveness,” she added.

The long-term impact could be profound, the psychologists agreed.