Try It Tuesday: Special Olympics, Special Lady, Special Kids

I don't know much about Eunice Kennedy Shriver, but I had the pleasure of volunteering for the Special Olympics in HS (early 1980s) and in reading about her in the papers today I am impressed with her work to teach, encourage, and challenge special needs kids.

Then these paragraphs caught my eye:

The next generation of the Kennedys often cited Eunice as the family member they looked up to most.

...

Yet Shriver, the mother of four sons and a daughter, thoroughly believed "in motherhood as the nourishment of life," once writing that "it is the most wonderful, satisfying thing we can do."

...

"If I [had] never met Rosemary, never known anything about handicapped children, how would I have ever found out? Because nobody accepted them anyplace." (Eunice Shriver)

...

In 1961, Eunice Shriver turned Timberlawn, the family farm in Maryland, into a free day camp for mentally disabled children. She would get down in the dirt with campers, play in the sandbox, pitch softballs or teach them to swim. Shriver had them riding horseback and shooting bows and arrows.

"Nobody else's mother was doing anything like that," Maria Shriver said in the 1994 book "The Kennedy Women," by Laurence Leamer. "It was always my mother following her own gut going against the grain."

(source: LA Times)


Talk about the epitome of Tackle It/Try It Tuesday! I salute Mrs. Shriver, and moms and caregivers everywhere who follow what they know and feel to make the lives of our special kids happier and better.

My own personal quest this summer? Keeping James challenged with more mainstream activities. He has become potty trained during the day over the past school year and can communicate with others verbally (which is most excellent in itself). Getting him more swim time. He had a month of summer school in June, then speech therapy weekly, 2 sessions of a morning summer camp, and Music Together. He watched his sister have her head under the water breakthrough and enjoys swim sessions at the pool. We go at least once a week. He has made jumps forward. And grown another inch or so, I swear!

Another salute to Trish, who is taking time to regroup with her family. Thank you for all the information and insights, and best wishes.




Feeling Inspired? Or want to be? Visit Try It Tuesday at 5 Minutes for Special Needs.