A screen free afternoon · Local
A screen free afternoon near East Nashville
If you are searching from East Nashville, this is the practical answer.
Nobody has to ban anything. Children put the phone down on their own when the alternative is better.
The drive back to East Nashville is where you find out what they actually thought. Children review an outing about twenty minutes after leaving it, never during.
Getting there
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.
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.
What you will find
Screen free is easy to say on a Saturday morning and hard to do by two in the afternoon.
If one child is nervous, let them watch for the first ten minutes without being asked to join in. Almost all of them join in.
How long to allow
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.
Worth the trip?
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.
Tell a nervous child what is going to happen in the order it will happen. Surprise is the thing they mind, not the activity.
Questions parents ask
Is there screen time involved?
The machines are levers and cables. The ice is ice.
How do I get in touch?
By phone on +1 (424) 387-6232 or +1 (615) 968-4925, or by e-mail at info@newlife-entertainment.com.
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 East Nashville
If East Nashville is home, this is the sort of place you end up returning to rather than ticking off. That changes what a first visit is worth planning around.
Bring less than you think. Coats and bags are the part of the visit nobody enjoys managing.
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.
For a East Nashville 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.
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.