A screen free afternoon · Faq
A screen free afternoon in University City: the questions parents ask
Short answers to the things worth knowing in advance.
Nobody has to ban anything. Children put the phone down on their own when the alternative is better.
From University City the practical question is timing rather than distance. Arriving in the first hour after opening is worth more than shaving minutes off the drive.
The short answers
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.
Screen free is easy to say on a Saturday morning and hard to do by two in the afternoon.
The longer answers
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.
Let the child lead the order of things. Adults optimise; children choose the thing that looks best, and they are right more often than they are wrong.
Still worth asking on the day
Nobody has to ban anything. Children put the phone down on their own when the alternative is better.
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.
Questions parents ask
Is there screen time involved?
The machines are levers and cables. The ice is ice.
Where is New Life Entertainment?
Two centres: 433 Opry Mills Drive, Nashville TN 37214, and 8111 Concord Mills Blvd, Concord NC 28027.
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.
Planning your visit in University City
Nothing about the visit assumes you know the area. The centre is inside Concord Mills, which is signposted from everywhere in Concord and impossible to miss once you are there.
If two adults are coming, split up rather than shadowing the same child. One at the rail, one free, and everybody has a better hour.
If it is the first time, do not also make it a birthday. Learning a place and celebrating in it are two different visits.
Plenty of the families in the room on a weekday morning have come from somewhere like University City. Nobody is local to a mall attraction; everybody has driven.
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
Anything time critical is worth a phone call first: hours are 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM Monday to Saturday and 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM on Sunday.