12 Ways to Help Our Kids Practice Self Advocacy from Emily Kircher-Morris

Emily Kircher-Morris says the number one skill to encourage out autistic high school graduates to practice is self advocacy. She's a mental health counselor and author of two books including Raising Twice Exceptional Children: Handbook for Parents of Neurodivergent Gifted Kids. And a podcast host of the Neurodiversity Podcast.

Here are her 12 Great ideas to help us encourage self advocacy.

#1 When we teach how to advocate for accommodations, our young adults are more likely to do it. And so we need to give them a formula. More about that in just a minute. But once they practice that formula over and over again, they're going to be able to do it so much better when they're more on the spot and a little less anxious to be assertive.

#2 What we want to do, and here's the formula, is we want to name our strengths and our struggles plus what helps.

So here's an example. "Part of my brain is quite anxious. And I find that that helps me notice a lot of things that other people overlook. It also can cause paralysis when I'm faced with a task that I've never faced before.

So what really helps me is a heads-up on anything new or novel at work so that I can be more comfortable addressing that challenge.

We started with the strength. We moved on to what the struggle can be and what helps.

Notice that I didn't reveal any diagnosis. I'm not even sure that those are useful in most situations. I mean, diagnoses are very helpful when we're dealing with the healthcare system, and it can also be a shortcut for explaining what's going on if we don't have a lot of time. But overall, I think it's much better if we describe what's happening and what can help so that we're both better informed about what it is that needs to be accommodated.

For the rest of Emily's GREAT IDEAS, listen to the podcast.

For a PDF summary of these ideas, click here.