I remember working in my home-office on a weekend and hearing Julie,
calling up the stairs, asking me if I could take some time and help her. She
was dealing with housework and our two toddler kids and she was more than a
bit exasperated. I grabbed a portable tape recorder and shoved in a tape
of the William Tell Overture, also used as the theme from "The Lone Ranger" on
television. Many of you may recognize this as standard "rescue" music on
old film soundtracks. Anyway, I rushed down the stairs like a comic book
superhero with the William Tell Overture playing at full blast. I don't
remember what I was working on at the time, but I know putting it aside
and making a big entrance to immediately pitch in on family matters was a
huge hit with Julie and the kids.

Playing family games was fun for us. I think one of the keys to success is
monkeying with the rules so everyone can play. You don't have to throw
the rules out the window, just modify them so young kids or those with some
challenges can fully participate.

It's a hoot to play Scrabble with made-up words allowed - as long as
they're inventive and you make up a fun meaning.

Pictionary, a kind of drawing version of "charades," was our favorite
for a while. My kids still kid me about a duck I drew that looked like
anything but.

One of Julie's real strengths is coming up with great gifts. She puts real
thought into family presents. She also loves to bake and present the
kids with care packages of brownies, cookies, cheese straws and such. No
mama ever showered her kids with more encouragement than my wife - and I can
always count on hearing her laughing when she's on the phone with Drew
or Jessie.

We also had a lot of fun with bedtime stories. My son and daughter were
born 17 months apart, so they were close enough in age to enjoy many of
the same things at the same time.

When Jessie was three, she was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis (CF).
Since that time, she's done a session of physical therapy once or twice a day
to help clear her lungs. For years, Julie would do the morning session
with Jessie and I'd do the evening session. To help the time go faster, I'd
bring Drew into the room during therapy and tell them both stories.

While the therapy sessions were mandatory, they gave us a chance to
have fun every night during story time. I decided to tape record the stories so
I could offer the kids "reruns" when I felt too tired to come up with new
ideas.

Not that the stories were all original. I borrowed liberally from any
book, movie play, TV show or cartoon I'd ever seen for ideas. The tape
recordings are testaments to how tired I was many nights, because you can hear me
yawn frequently during the stories. But those recordings are a treasure
now.  Not so much for what I'm saying, but for the laughs and questions and
suggestions from my kids that are sprinkled throughout the soundtrack.
There's a story on one tape which features Drew as a prince and Jessie
as a princess. In passing, my voice notes that Princess Jessie has on a
beautiful dress. I move quickly on toward a peak of adventure when
Jessie interrupts and hauls me back. "What about the dwess?" her little voice
chirps. She had her own priorities. Adventure could, and did, wait
for a detailed description of the princess dress.

The stories featured Jessie's stuffed teddy bear, "Bearly." Bearly
Bear would routinely pop into Jessie's room and lead Jessie and Drew through
a magic door in Jessie's closet to the land of the Bear King. The Bear
King's realm was frequently invaded by evil wizards, who'd have to be
out-smarted and banished by Jessie, Drew and Bearly. Professional note: Evil
wizards are particularly vulnerable to having dirty socks thrust beneath their
noses. It makes them swoon so you can knock off their wizard hats and
cut them off from their sources of power. You get the idea.

When my wife and I take long car trips, I like to listen to some of these
old tapes and hear Drew and Jessie whoop it up in the background when
an evil wizard gets a particularly smelly sock shoved in his face at a
pivotal point in the story and goes into hysterics.

So, if you have any flair for story telling, I'd milk the dirty sock bit for
all it's worth. It's killer material for four and five-year-olds.

And if storytelling's not your forte, no problem. Your local library is
chock-full of great children's books you can read to your kids. You
can even change the names of characters in the books and substitute your
kids' names. Kids love hearing about themselves and librarians can be a huge
help in pointing you toward fun books in the right age range. If you have
more than one child, it's a great way to help them bond.

When families have a child with a disability, dealing with disability
issues for a son or daughter can suck up a lot of time and make your other
children feel neglected. Including all your kids in story time can help you
wire into their brains that it's fun to be together. Not to mention the
opportunity to reinforce any other lessons you want to teach in the
stories you tell or read. Having said this, we also found it was important to
routinely spend one-on-one time with each of our kids.

We had a bit of a special situation. After we found out Jessie had CF,
Drew was diagnosed with a series of communications-related disorders. He
finally got a correct diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome. Even before we knew he
had AS, we were trying to address his special needs. So because both our
kids required extra attention of different sorts, we didn't have a situation
where one got overshadowed by the other's needs.

This didn't feel like a plus at the time. It felt like being in a ship that
was in constant danger of being swamped. But looking back, giving
attention to both kids helped bring them and our family closer together. And we
had a lot of fun along the way. Fun has made it easier to relate to the
kids when they've gotten frustrated, especially when we've needed to
persuade them to do something for their health or well-being. Fun is like oil
that helps the family gears mesh smoothly.

Fun has been an important factor in our marriage, too. I heard a statistic
the other day that the majority of parents who have kids on the autism
spectrum get divorced. Finding ways to have fun while you're dealing
with overwhelming pressure is like a life preserver in a storm. It helped
save my wife and I more than once.

Today, Drew and Jessie are both doing well in college. They're living
on their respective campuses and we could not be more proud. They keep in
contact and support each other. We love having them home on school
breaks because they're both so much fun to be around.

And while they deserve every credit for overcoming their challenges, I
like to think that part of the reason they're successful has to do with
story time and mama laughs and poorly drawn ducks and the power of fun.

Because things are only as special as you make them.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dan Coulter is the writer/producer of "MANNERS FOR
THE REAL WORLD: Basic Social Skills" and other videos for parents and
children.
You can find additional articles on his website: www.coultervideo.com.

Copyright 2005 Dan Coulter Used By Permission All Rights Reserved