Early Intervention Services 0-4 yrs.

Pre School Readiness Skills 4-6 yrs.

School for Special Education 6-16 yrs.

Pre Voc & Vocational Centre 18+ yrs.

Recreational & Activity Club 5+ yrs.

Remedial Teaching Services Speech, OT,

Mental Disability

Coping with the Dual Challenge

It is important to know how the families have coped with the dual challenge of continued care giving responsibility on the one hand and dealing with the ageing process on the other. Later life parenting provides a very meaningful role to older families.

Care giving across the course of life has a fulfilling effect for many families rather than that of depletion. This raises a larger question about the function of giving or nurturance in old age. In most of our Images of older people, we see the old person on the receiving end of the exchange. On the receiving end of family support, they're on the receiving end of services and they're portrayed as frail. However, older people can also be givers. These mothers, although they have a sense of fulfillment, they've also experienced a great number of losses. They've lost freedom and spontaneity at a time of their life when their friends are much less constrained than they are. They have lost, in many respects, a chance to put their own needs as the top priority. Some feel they've really experienced a loss of aspects of family responsibility because they could not really attend to the needs of their other children or their grandchildren.

It is seen that when care giving comes to an end, when the son or daughter moves away from the family home, the mother experiences the loss of possibly the most important role of her life.