Do you miss some of your childhood memories? I was seven years old when the Atari 2600 came out. This was truly an amazing machine. With a full 8 bit processor, over 350 games that attached to your tv, it was sure to allow for hundreds if not thousands of hours of family fun. To think this was all for under 50 dollars.

My family has always been competitive. We compete in sports, board games, and even life in general. Soon, we would be competing in the electronic world of video games. A few years back, my mom was at a garage sale and for a quarter picked up a plaque that you hang on the wall. This plaque had a plastic tube for which you put dimes in. According to the plaque, once it was full, you had 50.00 worth of dimes. Our family had been saving all of their dimes for a little more than a year. The time had finally come to purchase a “family” gift. We had decided on Atari’s new joy machine.

We purchased the entertainment system at K-Mart. It was $50.00 well spent. The box was plain and simple, without much printing on the outside.  I remember wanting to open it in the car on the way home. We had purchased two additional games with the machine, which came with two as well. The two included games were Stampede and Pac -Man. We also purchased Pong and Combat (Combat had 64 games built into one). This is every kid’s dream. Everyone knows the classic Pac-Man, but the graphics on this were terrible, certainly not like the arcade version.  In Stampede, you are a cowboy on a horse running a track roping all of the loose cows. While I was not much of a real cowboy, nor did I ever want to be, Stamped allowed me to escape into a world where riding horses and five gallon hats not only made me cool, but made me think that pressing a button would help me catch cows.

Let the Competition Begin

Over the next two to three years, we purchased a huge collection of games. At one point, we had over 400 cartridges which gave us almost 500 games including everything from Pitfall to River Raid, Keystone Capers, to Crackpots. We had a sheet of paper taped to the entertainment center, where we kept track of our high scores. No score could be legally changed without a witness. (Although I think my brother may have changed some of his when no one was watching. I never would have done this. Wink Wink).

It was years later before the Nintendo came out. While all of our friends and neighbors bought these systems and played their games, which we better in their graphics and speed, and harder with their extra button on the controller, we never upgraded from our Atari 2600. Our family would challenge each other for hours with the phrase ‘I play the winner.’ This kept the competition going and going, and going.

Relive your Childhood Memories Today

A few years back while shopping at Goodwill my wife and I purchased an original Atari 2600. While the newer gaming systems provide high def graphics, realistic sound, and a much better playing environment, to me they are not quite as good as the Atari 2600. When I begin to play Pitfall 2, Dig Dug, or Burger Time the memories of my childhood come flooding back. I was especially good at Baseball and Tank Wars. Although, I could never beat my brother at Football (either electronic or in real life). Nothing brings back fond memories with my family quite like the hours spent playing these games. It is amazing to me 30 years later, that I still find joy in these simple games for children. Currently, I can play these games with my parents and have friendly competition and believe it or not, life lessons were learned through this game system. Practice makes perfect. Competition is good. Life isn’t always fair, and don’t be a sore loser or winner. These are the moments that count.

So what is the most precious thing I would keep in a time capsule…a game cartridge from my Atari 2600. You could also save your family score sheet you all wrote on keeping track of your own family competition throughout the years. The blue ink over the black ink is a dead giveaway that my brother changed the scores. Ha Ha. I know he changed that score from a 3 to an 8. Preserve these items in your own Family Time Capsule by using this “Any Occasion” DIY Time Capsule to create your own Family Time Capsule. Get yours today here. Check out this other fun article about 50 Things only 80’s Kids can Understand or Remember.

What memories do you have of your childhood that you relive today? What brings you closer to your family? Comment below.

Making Milestone Moments Count,

– Mark

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21 Creative Ways to Use a Time Capsule to Connect with Teenagers

You know, I remember asking my mom and dad when I was a teenager, “If life is like this now, what is it going to be like when my children are teenagers?” It was a rhetorical question, one of the many that came from my random thoughts as a teenager. I have always been one of those kids who was told, “you are wise beyond your years.” My parents made it a goal to consistently make sure they were bonding with us in positive ways. When I worked as a counselor in my own private practice, I heard many different life stories from young kids and teenagers. It is vital, to find anything and everything you can to communicate to teenagers about their world, even if it is a time capsule.

This blog is a continuation about who can use a time capsule. These priceless and treasured gifts can also be used by teenagers. During a time of great confusion, a teenager is trying to discover his or her identity. The following is a list of 21 ways to use a teenage time capsule to connect with with adolescence on a deeper level.

1. Write a “Message to the Future” letter to yourself about where you see yourself after you graduate or get married.

2. Use the time capsule as an anonymous container in your youth group, for kids to put questions or comments on slips of paper to leave for staff to read once per week, or have teachers from your teenagers high-school, fill out a letter about predictions of where they see him or her in the future.

3. To put your nostalgic memorabilia in, from childhood, to open years later and reminisce about what life was like during that time in your life.

4. To save love letters from your first boyfriend, to review later when you meet “the one.” What a fun day that may be when you read those old letters from your “first” official boyfriend. A time capsule will help you remember this “first” or milestone moment in your life.

5. Adolescence is an adventure in of itself, of which includes many exciting events that need to be preserved in a profile book of yourself that you can include in your time capsule.

6. For a teenager, giving them the privacy they so desperately want, is connecting with them. Let them develop their independence, as they learn skills of how to make it in life on their own, by encouraging them to keep extra money in their time capsule like a savings bank with emergency money.

7. For a teenager, a time capsule is similar to diaries, journals, or saved emails to yourself. Time capsules can be a place to work out difficult life questions, as you write about your feelings and changing relationships.

8. Connect with your teenager by using the time capsule to teach them about what to hold on to and what to let go. Let them put those emotions on pieces of paper or in a letter, put their old favorite shirt or toy in a time capsule, to bury or put away for years, helping them forget about it and let go.

9. Leave your teenager a letter, in the time capsule, about what life was like when you were a teenager. Then have your teenager open the time capsule with the letter in it and other significant items you saved from his or her life so far.

10. In the time capsule, leave a list of positive words that describe your teenager. Make it look nice on special paper, that maybe he or she will want to frame and hang on the wall.

11. Show you listen to your teenager, and put something significant in the time capsule and then give it to them to open as if a present. For example, put a favorite book, movie, or music, etc in the time capsule.

12. When you feel your daughter is of age to wear make-up, put a set of different colors of eye shadow, lipstick, nail polish, etc in a time capsule and have a special party as she enters adulthood. You could even invite her friends over for a make-up party.

13. Write a love letter to your teenager, and say how proud of them you are. Leave it in their time capsule, telling them when they can open it, for their special surprise.

14. Let your teenager use the time capsule as a place to write out the full story of what happened (during a problem in their life or if he or she made a bad life decision). This helps your teenager get the whole story out, before you react or jump to conclusions.

15. Create a favorite, new, recipe together and save it in their time capsule for years so they have it for when they get married.

16. Keep a souvenir from your fun vacation together, in their time capsule.

17. Take great photos of moments with your teenager, or their friends, and preserve them in a time capsule for years. Then, at their graduation, open the time capsule and reminisce about the “good old days.”

18. Keep a gift or memorabilia from a shared hobby or passion, you have spent time doing with your teenager, in the time capsule. None of us really truly understand what a special time in our lives meant, until it is gone or your teenager has left for college far away.

19. Put the keys to their first car, in the time capsule, then let them open the time capsule when they receive their driver’s license.

20. Make a college survival gift basket kit, with the time capsule holding many significant items from their childhood, you feel he or she would want to preserve and take to college.

21. Make a bucket list to keep in your time capsule, to see what all you have accomplished by the time you open the time capsule.

I hope this list of ideas is just a start for you to connect better with your teenager. A time capsule is a gift that keeps on giving and giving. Pass on your life lessons, and preserve your teenager’s milestone moments in a time capsule. Help your adolescent tell his or her own children what life was like when he or she was a teenager, with the use of a decorative time capsule from http://www.timecapsule.com. For other ideas of what to put in a teenage time capsule, check out http://www.education.com/activity/article/Make_High_School_Time_Capsule/

What is one thing you would put in your teenager’s time capsule? Comment below.

Making Milestone Moments Count,

www.timecapsule.com

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