Some children are easy to love in their bright moments. The harder task—and the deeper ren—is loving them in their difficult phases: when they are defiant, when they push every boundary, when they seem unreachable. Confucius acknowledges that even his best students wavered. If adults cannot sustain perfect virtue, how much more should we expect children to struggle? The 'difficult child' is not a broken child—they are a child in harder terrain, needing more patient companionship. Parents who stay present during hard phases, who do not withdraw love when behavior worsens, teach their child the deepest lesson about humaneness: it does not quit when things get difficult.