India, Sept. 3 -- We like to imagine childhood as years of play and freedom from worry. Look closer at an average child's week - schoolwork, parental expectations, friction at home, social comparison, bullying, loneliness, a phone that never switches off - and a different picture emerges: children carrying more psychological weight than we credit them with, minus the emotional toolkit adults spent decades building. Not all stress is harmful - some teaches adaptation and builds resilience. What matters is the difference between stress that's brief and manageable, and stress that turns prolonged and overwhelming. Harvard's Centre on the Developing Child calls the second kind "toxic stress": excessive or repeated activation of the body's str...