HMN 2025: How Teens deserve a kinder inner voice:

During one of my visits to schools in Delhi, I asked the students: “When something doesn’t go the way you expected, or when you fail at something, it feels bad, right? What do you say to yourself in those moments?”

The students’ reactions conveyed a mix of hesitation, confusion, and a little guilt on their faces. It was clear that many teens were often very harsh on themselves. They shared not only narratives of high self-criticism to cope with the failures, but also extreme measures like self-punishment.

In a world that constantly urged young people to push harder, score higher, and do better, I realized that it rarely taught them how to take the first step to being gentle with oneself. That moment became one of the reasons I began studying self-compassion among Indian adolescents.

Self-compassion is not a new idea. At its core, it means treating ourselves with the same warmth and understanding that we so naturally extend to others. It means recognizing that struggle is a part of being human and that everyone falters sometimes.

Over the years, global research has shown how this quality can protect young people from the deep traps of self-criticism and isolation. But I realized something was missing: We didn’t yet know how self-compassion looked and felt for Indian teens, who grow up in a cultural landscape defined by high expectations, comparison, and pressure from high-stakes national exams.

So, along with my colleagues, I set out to explore this question through our study titled “Exploring factors and demographic variability of the self-compassion scale for youth (SCS-Y) among Indian adolescents” published in Discover Psychology.

We worked with 815 students, aged 12 to 17, from six Delhi schools, including both government and private. Our aim was twofold; first, to see whether the tool we used truly resonated in our context, and second, to understand how different groups of adolescents experienced self-compassion.

The results were eye-opening. We confirmed that the SCS-Y works well in Indian settings, but we also uncovered patterns that raised concern. We found that older teens, especially girls between 14 and 18, and those studying in classes 9 to 12 scored higher on the negative aspects of self-compassion such as self-judgment, isolation, and over-identification.

In simpler terms, they were more likely to be hard on themselves, feel alone in their struggles, or get stuck in painful thoughts. Students from government schools also reported greater feelings of isolation compared to their peers in private schools.

Part of this answer lies in how many of our young people are shaped by their surroundings. Girls, for instance, often grow up being taught to put others first, to be self-critical, and to quietly shoulder expectations to remain perfect. With time, these subtle messages can make them more prone to rumination and guilt, resulting in higher self-criticism.

Older adolescents, too, face a unique storm of pressures from academic performance, identity exploration, to social comparison that intensifies further during classes 9 to 12, leaving little to no room for self-kindness. In this age group, growing cognitive maturity can also lead to overthinking, which easily turns into self-blame.

For students in government schools, the experience of isolation is reasoned with the prevalent socio-economic differences. In this context, the compounded socioeconomic stress and a reduced sense of belonging or support deepens the feelings of isolation, making it difficult for them to resonate with the struggles of those from privileged backgrounds. All these layers together create a quiet but powerful narrative for the inner critic to sprout from that age.

These findings highlight that as adolescents grow older, and their pressures mount, their ability to be kind to themselves seems to fade. It means that somewhere between childhood and young adulthood, they start believing that being critical is the only way to grow. But scientific studies do tell us otherwise. Over two decades and more, they have established that harsh self-talk doesn’t build strength; it chips away at confidence.

This is why we must begin teaching self-compassion as a life skill, not a luxury. It doesn’t mean ignoring mistakes or lowering standards. It means responding to difficulties with understanding, learning from them without losing self-worth. It means taking accountability for your actions but also staying firm in being kind to yourself in the moments of distress. To give yourself the warm hug that brings you home for improvement and not run away from it.

Inspired by this research, I have now begun taking this work beyond the data into real classrooms as sessions with school students in India. Together, we are set to explore how teens speak to themselves in those moments of stress and how their inner dialogue could be trained to sound kinder.

As a researcher, it’s deeply rewarding to see insights from data come alive in human stories. Every session reminds me that these seeds of kindness, once planted, can grow into something much larger. A generation that learns self-compassion early will carry it into their friendships, their work, and their future families, adding to a more compassionate society.

This story is part of Science X Dialog, where researchers can report findings from their published research articles. Visit this page for information about Science X Dialog and how to participate.

Ekta Chopra is a psychology researcher at the University of Delhi. She’s currently a Senior Research Fellow (Ph.D. scholar) in the Department of Psychology at the university. She specializes in self compassion, education, health, and resilience among adolescents. She has been the gold medallist in both graduation and post-graduation, with the recipient of the highest college award of “Best Student All Rounder, Daulat Ram College, DU.” Her research focuses on understanding self compassion in Indian adolescent school students. She looks at how it is experienced and shaped within the Indian cultural context. Her latest publication on self-compassion highlights SCS-Y Scale Validation. She has been trained with the Center for Mindful Self-Compassion, Chicago, U.S. and Science of Happiness, IIT Delhi. She is also the youngest Research Ambassador and a Council member at the India Research Advisory Council, IRAC by Springer Nature (IRAC 2025).

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