The two sides of fun: Rethinking what we teach our children about engagement
30 Aug 2026
Spend an afternoon in one of Qatar’s shopping malls during the holidays and a particular pattern becomes difficult to ignore. Children’s entertainment is everywhere, but increasingly, entertainment seems to have become synonymous with volume. Music is amplified across large spaces, lights flash, entertainers perform, children compete and shout, countdowns announce the next activity, prizes are sometimes handed out, and one attraction competes with another for attention.
As a behavioural scientist whose professional work has largely focused on understanding how environments shape human behaviour and decision-making, I have begun to wonder whether we have quietly adopted an assumption that deserves to be challenged: that the louder, faster, and more stimulating an experience is, the more enjoyable and therefore more valuable it must be for a child.
The reality is that fun has two sides of the same coin. One side is loud, external, and immediate. The other side is quiet, internal, and gradual. Both can produce laughter. Both can produce joy. But they do not produce the same developmental outcomes. And if we are serious about the long-term wellbeing of our children, we need to ask which side of that coin we are spending the most time on. I am not suggesting that children should sit quietly, nor that excitement, physical activity or laughter are undesirable. But there is an important distinction between being active and being continuously stimulated, and our approach to children’s entertainment in Qatar would benefit from recognising it.
An enormous amount of current entertainment is built around immediate, external stimulation. The child is constantly being given something new to look at, hear, win or respond to. This is the first side of the coin. It is not inherently harmful. It can be joyful, social, and physically active. But it is a form of fun that requires very little from the child beyond reaction. The entertainment is delivered to them.
The second side of the coin looks different. A child sitting quietly in a farm-themed environment, with only natural sounds of the environment, trying to find a hidden chick, can be extraordinarily engaged.
That child is observing the environment, listening, remembering where they have already looked, comparing possibilities and resisting the temptation to give up. They may be concentrating more intensely than a child running through an attraction surrounded by lights, shouting and loud music. This is not passive entertainment. It is active cognitive work, and it is just as capable of producing a sense of satisfaction and joy. Perhaps even more importantly, it is entertainment that requires the child to participate mentally rather than simply react to increasingly powerful external stimuli.
This question deserves particular attention in Qatar because we already have reason to take children’s behavioural and developmental environment seriously.
A systematic review and meta-analysis published in BMJ Open, estimated the ADHD prevalence in Qatar at 9.2 percent. It is a reason to take children’s attention and behavioural development seriously and to focus on the environments in which children grow up. However, we need to be careful. There is no scientific justification for saying that loud entertainment causes ADHD. ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition with complex genetic and environmental influences. Likewise, it would be irresponsible to tell parents that sugar causes ADHD. The evidence concerning diet is considerably more complicated than that. But from a behavioral science perspective, the more interesting question is not about causation.
It is about capacity building. What are we training our children to do? Are we training them to require external stimulation in order to feel engaged? Or are we training them to generate their own engagement from the world around them? We live in a world in which children are surrounded by competing demands for their attention. Screens, games, videos, music, attractions and digital notifications are all designed to capture attention quickly. In that environment, the ability to slow down, observe something carefully, tolerate a period of quiet and remain engaged without constant novelty becomes increasingly valuable.
This is not just about childhood but the kind of adults we are producing. The capacity for sustained attention, for delayed gratification, for independent problem-solving; these are not luxuries. They are foundational skills for adult wellbeing, professional competence, and even national resilience. Yet we rarely talk about calm as a skill. Perhaps, we should also talk about teaching children that they can find satisfaction in things that do not immediately demand their attention.
A child trying to construct a bridge from wooden blocks can spend an extraordinary amount of time solving a problem or reading a story can disappear into an imaginary world without a flashing light or a soundtrack. These are not passive experiences. They are forms of engagement. They require curiosity, attention, patience and imagination. They are the quiet side of the fun coin, and they are just as powerful as the loud side.
This is why Qatar has an opportunity to rethink what children’s entertainment can look like. We have the resources and creativity to develop a different model rather than simply making existing entertainment bigger, louder and more technologically elaborate. Why could we not create dedicated discovery spaces? They could still be commercially successful. But the excitement would come from discovery rather than volume. We have a remarkable natural environment and cultural heritage that can provide the foundation for experiences that are both educational and entertaining.
Children can learn about the desert, the sea, falconry, plants and traditional life through experiences that encourage observation and curiosity. The question we should be asking when designing the next children’s attraction is, “How can we make this more interesting?” It shifts the focus from stimulation to curiosity, from spectacle to discovery, and from immediate reaction to meaningful engagement.
The two sides of the fun coin both have value. The question is not which one to eliminate, but which one we have been neglecting. And perhaps the time has come to flip the coin and see what the other side has to offer.
(The writer is a lawyer and scientist specialising in strategic defence consulting. Her expertise bridges law and science to address complex global security challenges.)
