Have fun under the sun

There was magic in the way we played as children. Magic that’s hard to put into words. Magic that happened not on screens but outdoors. We knew the smell of freshly cut grass, the sting of scraped knees, the thrill of a friend already waiting at the corner of the street. Days ahead stretched endlessly full of real laughter, real conversation, real connection.But when I look around now, it feels like another life.The world our children live in is different. The outdoors has been swapped for the indoors. The playground for the iPad. Adventure for the algorithm. Outdoor life isn’t just exercise or fresh air— it’s life. Tag, tree climbing, playing football etc…. The simple things taught us more than any teacher could. We learned to fall and stand up, to lose and still have a smile, to share, to respect, to belong. Under the sun, we learned resilience, friendship and trust.Read: Dr. Jabir Jassam: Are we causing more harm than good?But when screens came to the centre of children’s lives, something quiet but deep inside began to change. Children experience the world second-hand now, not through their senses but swipes and taps. We see them sitting for hours, eyes glazed by the blue light, body still, heart far away. Risks are not just physical: loneliness, impatience, anxiety, disconnection. The human lessons that once unfolded naturally on the playground are now replaced with fleeting digital interactions and shallow validations.Our social lives have changed, too. Friendships were once built on hours together outside, not a quick message or a “like.” We read faces, heard tones, navigated emotions. We learned respect not because someone told us but because we earned it through experience, laughter and sometimes mistakes. Respect feels thinner today. Conversations shorter, tempers quicker and, under the surface, a quiet sadness growing—the sadness of children who have never truly known the richness of real human connection.This is not a technology problem. It’s a displacement problem. We forgot children need sunlight more than screen light, dirt under their nails more than fingerprints on glass, real friends more than virtual followers.But it’s not too late. The sun is still shining. The fields still waiting. Friendship is still possible to be real, laughter still free, adventure still just a step outside.Children need to know that life happens beyond walls and screens. It happens under the open sky, where hearts beat faster not from a video game but from a race, a climb, a game of catch. It happens when we look up, stretch our arms wide and feel the sun on our faces.Children need to reclaim what was so natural to us. They should not be afraid of boredom but see it as the gateway to imagination.They should have the gift we were given: the chance to have fun under the sun—and to find themselves in the wide, beautiful, real world.Dr. Jabir Jassam is a family physician in Ottawa.

Have fun under the sun

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