Madhavan warns about the one habit that quietly develops childhood trauma in kids. 'I was called the shaitaan...'

Actor R Madhavan has often spoken in interviews about growing up, parenting, and how early experiences quietly shape a person’s mindset over time. In one of his older conversations, the actor reflected not just on his own childhood but also on what he later learned about raising children. His comments connect two very different phases of life, being a child himself and now observing parenting more closely as a father.

Childhood memories

In a 2024 conversation with Ranveer Allahbadia, Madhavan spoke openly about his childhood and the way he was perceived while growing up. He said, “I had the most blessed childhood; it had all its challenges and trauma. My dad was very sure that he didn’t want to make me grow up privileged. He spent the money at the right places. I was not great in studies and was always compared to other people."

Madhavan added, "I was called the ‘shaitaan’ of the society. Mothers used to tell their kids don’t play with Balaji which is my pet name, because he is not a good guy. Since I climbed trees, pet stray dogs, and all the conditioning they thought was not right. Being judged adds a lot of trauma to you as a child. But trauma is a big word; it’s overexposed and overexploited.”



He explained that a child being labelled in a certain way by people around them can quietly stay in their mind for years, even if it feels casual at the time.

Madhavan also mentioned that his father made a conscious effort not to raise him in comfort without boundaries. The idea was to keep him grounded rather than overly shielded. According to him, that kind of upbringing brings its own mix of freedom and pressure, and both can shape a child in different ways.

A parenting lesson from Canada

In another interview on the YouTube channel 100 Year Life Project by ACKO, Madhavan spoke about his time as an exchange student in Canada. He recalled staying with a family in a town where, as he described, teenage pregnancy and substance use were common around them. Yet the family he stayed with had children who were well-adjusted and focused.


He said, “I had the privilege of studying abroad and I lived in a town in Canada, which was pretty wild for those times. Teenage pregnancy was rampant over there. Drugs and alcohol was a part of that town. I found one family that I stayed with, their children, absolutely normal as can be. Very well brought up. Not into any of these issues.”

Years later, he asked the mother of that household how she managed it. What she told him stayed with him and, as he shared, influenced how he later looked at parenting his own son Vedaant.

“She gave me an advice which I followed to the heart and it really worked for my son,” he said and added, “don’t give your child free time’. She said, ‘indulge him or her in whatever they want to do, as long as they are doing it with passion, the interest will change. Their level of commitment will change. But make sure that they don’t have free time until they’re 15-16 years old. Make sure that they go from one activity to the other.”

Across both stories, his own childhood and his parenting observations, Madhavan points toward a simple idea that children are deeply shaped by environment, labels, and how their time is structured.