A screen free afternoon · Compare
A screen free afternoon in Gallatin: where it fits among family activities
There is no shortage of indoor options. The useful question is which one suits your particular child.
What replaces a screen has to be more interesting than a screen, which rules out most of the obvious answers. A machine a child actually controls is one of the few that works.
Plenty of the families in the room on a weekday morning have come from somewhere like Gallatin. Nobody is local to a mall attraction; everybody has driven.
What it does differently
Nobody has to ban anything. Children put the phone down on their own when the alternative is better.
Screen free is easy to say on a Saturday morning and hard to do by two in the afternoon.
Where other options win
The feedback loop is the same one games use - do a thing, see a result, adjust - except it happens with hands, in a room, with other people watching.
The quietest hour of the week is the first one on a weekday morning in term time. The busiest is Saturday around midday.
How to decide
What replaces a screen has to be more interesting than a screen, which rules out most of the obvious answers. A machine a child actually controls is one of the few that works.
Nobody has to ban anything. Children put the phone down on their own when the alternative is better.
The short version
Screen free is easy to say on a Saturday morning and hard to do by two in the afternoon.
Take the phone out of your pocket before they start rather than after. The moment worth filming is usually the first one.
Questions parents ask
Is there screen time involved?
The machines are levers and cables. The ice is ice.
What are the opening hours?
10:00 AM to 8:00 PM Monday to Saturday, and 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM on Sunday.
Where is New Life Entertainment?
Two centres: 433 Opry Mills Drive, Nashville TN 37214, and 8111 Concord Mills Blvd, Concord NC 28027.
Planning your visit in Gallatin
For a Gallatin family the trip works best folded into something else - the shopping that was happening anyway, a birthday that needed a venue, a Saturday that needed a plan.
Agree the leaving time before you walk in, out loud, to the child. Announcing it later sounds like a punishment; agreeing it first sounds like a plan.
A short visit that ends while they still want more beats a long one that ends in a meltdown, every time.
A Gallatin school holiday runs out of ideas by about day three. This is a day-three answer rather than a day-one one.
The practical details
- XCAV ZONE — 433 Opry Mills Drive, Nashville TN 37214: four child-operated machines over a ball pit.
- ICE PARK — 8111 Concord Mills Blvd, Concord NC 28027: a real rink with bumper cars on the ice.
- Opening hours — 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM Monday to Saturday, 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM on Sunday.
- Phone — +1 (424) 387-6232 · +1 (615) 968-4925
- E-mail — info@newlife-entertainment.com
The two centres are at 433 Opry Mills Drive in Nashville and 8111 Concord Mills Blvd in Concord, open 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM most days and 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM on Sunday.