Teaching Non-Compliance

On NPR, Joe Shapiro has a powerful new series on sexual abuse and intellectual disability. I'll have more to say about that later in the week. Here's one reaction though from a fellow parent that's incredibly important.

The author thinks about all the ways that we train folks with Intellectual and developmental disabilities to be compliant, rather than to promote autonomy and agency. But it doesn't have to be that way. She writes:

Here are some of my initial ideas to ensure that we (as parents, as caregivers, as teachers, etc.) are not encouraging compliancy in kids with intellectual disabilities, but are rather encouraging autonomy and agency:

• 4. We can play practice games where we do something mildly irritating to our child–tickling, blowing in their ear, a small silly thing–and they communicate their “stop” to us, and we stop immediately, and we high-five them. Again, we’re teaching healthy non-compliance here.
• 7. We can applaud when our kids assert their wills. We can champion their defiance, knowing it will serve them well.

I do number 4 a lot. I tickle my son, then we talk about whether we'd like more tickles or not.

Of course, teaching non-compliance raises risks when interacting with law enforcement, as I've written so often about under the #CultOfCompliance rubric. It's a challenge.

READ THE WHOLE THING!

Intellectual Disability and Vietnam

This is an incredible article on, as they were called at the time, "McNamara's Morons," people with intellectual disabilities drafted into the Vietnam War.

One morning in the summer of 1967, I was among about 100 men at the Armed Forces induction center in Nashville. It was the height of the Vietnam War, and I had volunteered for the Army. A sergeant walked into the room and announced that all of us would leave soon to begin training in Fort Benning, Ga. Then he asked, “Is anyone here a college graduate?”

I raised my hand, and he motioned me to follow him. He took me down a hallway to a bench where I was introduced to a young man I’m going to call Johnny Gupton, to protect his privacy. Gupton was also assigned to Fort Benning. “I want you to take charge of this man,” the sergeant told me. “Go with him every step of the way.” He explained that Gupton could neither read nor write, and would need help in filling out paperwork when we arrived at Benning. Then he added: “Make sure he doesn’t get lost. He’s one of McNamara’s Morons.”

I had never heard the term, and I was surprised that the sergeant would openly insult Gupton. But I learned quickly that “McNamara’s Morons” was a term that many officers and sergeants used to refer to thousands of low-I.Q. men like Gupton who were taken into the military under a program devised by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.

There's also a documentary.