Honoring Your Needs & Strengths for Stronger Self-Advocacy
- Jen
- Nov 6, 2025
- 8 min read
As parents of neurodivergent kids, we can nurture self-advocacy by honoring needs and celebrating strengths – ours and theirs alike.
Before we can advocate for ourselves – or help our children advocate for themselves – we first need to understand who we are and what we need.
In earlier posts, we explored foundational communication skills for self-advocacy and the link between consent and boundaries. But self-advocacy also begins within – by noticing what we need to feel safe and supported, what helps us thrive, and recognizing our unique strengths. This includes recognizing the ways we communicate, whether through words, gestures, behavior, or other forms.
Many of us were taught to “push through” discomfort or “try harder” when we didn’t meet others’ expectations – socially, academically, or emotionally. But it’s hard to succeed, even with persistence, when environments don’t accommodate our needs or honor different ways we express ourselves. Pushing through isn’t sustainable, and it can go against our own intuition about what works best for us.
Self-advocacy starts with understanding our needs as indicators about how we function best. In this post, we’ll explore how to identify both needs and strengths, helping to build self-awareness and strengthen self-advocacy skills.
Understanding Your Needs: Feeling Safe, Supported, and Capable
Every person has needs – conditions that help our brains and bodies do their best work. For neurodivergent people, these needs may look different from what schools, workplaces, or society expect. But that doesn’t make them any less valid.
Some examples of needs neurodivergent people may have include:
A quiet place to learn or think
Sensory breaks – especially before a hard task (not just used as a “reward” for completing a hard task)
Predictable routines or a heads-up before transitions
Flexible scheduling or extra time for tests and deadlines
Time or space to communicate in ways that don’t rely on speech, like using gestures, images, or assistive tools
Visual supports for learning or planning
To be spoken to in a calm voice
A safe place to stim without judgment
Time to decompress after an overstimulating day
When our needs are met, learning and self-regulation come more easily. When they aren’t, much of our energy goes toward simply surviving rather than thriving.
Many of us have learned to ignore these signals by masking or altering our behaviors to “fit in.” But needs don’t disappear just because we don’t name them. Noticing and naming them is one of the most compassionate things we can do for ourselves and our children.
Reflecting on Your Own Needs
For parents, reflecting on our own needs is a key way to model what honoring needs looks like. Maybe bright lights or crowded, noisy places trigger sensory overload and raise your stress. Being aware of these patterns is an important part of your own self-advocacy. And your children learn from how you notice and navigate your own needs.
We can ask ourselves:
When do I feel overwhelmed?
What helps me feel calm or focused again?
What kind of environment helps me do my best?
What do I notice about my body, and what might certain behaviors be signaling?
Once we figure out own own answers, we can ask these same questions of our children. Maybe compare responses.
Supporting Children’s Communications
For younger children or those with limited verbal skills, visuals can support conversations about needs. My oldest son didn’t engage in verbal conversations until age six, and before then we used images and words to help him communicate discomfort (like ear pain) or express what he needed, often by pointing to images and words. Meeting children where they are helps them communicate in ways that work for them. Communication isn’t just verbal.
For children who do use verbal communication, we can support their ability to name needs by noticing patterns and asking: “I noticed you focus and stay calm in art class. What about art class helps you relax?” Their answers can spark reflection about what’s working – and what isn’t. Perhaps it’s quietness, lighting, or even a particular scent that supports regulation or comfort.
We can also suggest options gently: “I notice you cover your ears a lot. Would noise-canceling headphones or a quieter space help?”
Honoring our own needs – and helping our children honor theirs – is one step. The next is recognizing and celebrating our strengths – the qualities that help us move through the world with purpose and confidence.
Understanding Your Strengths: What Makes You Shine
Strengths are the skills, traits, and ways of thinking that make us who we are. They’re not just academic or job-related abilities. They’re the creative, sensory, and relational gifts that often go unnoticed, even by ourselves.
Here are some examples that may feel familiar in neurodivergent lives:
A strong attention to detail – noticing patterns others miss
Hyperfocus – the ability to immerse deeply in something (though it can also be draining if overused)
Creativity and innovation – seeing connections and possibilities others overlook
Empathy and compassion – tuning into others’ emotions with depth and sincerity
Honesty and fairness – valuing integrity and justice
Persistence – the ability to keep trying when things are hard
Strong memory – recalling specific details, moments, and situations that others forget
Intense interests – gaining deep knowledge on specific topics
These strengths may also come with challenges. A person who hyper-focuses may lose track of time. Someone who feels emotions deeply might struggle with emotional burnout. Our strengths can be complex, and understanding how they connect to our challenges gives us a fuller picture of how our brains work.
When naming our strengths, we can focus on what we’re noticing, such as:
“I notice I’m really good at organizing information visually. Visuals help me plan my week.”
“I notice I pay close attention to detail, which makes me good at editing.”
Or we can tell our kids what we’re noticing about them:
“You have such a great memory for details that I seem to forget. That’s a real strength.”
“Your knowledge about geography is impressive. The way you recognize countries by their shape is a cool strength.”
When we recognize and celebrate our strengths – and those of our children – we send a powerful message: our differences are a part of human diversity, and our abilities matter. Strengths help us advocate for ourselves, navigate the world more confidently, and model self-awareness for the next generation.
Putting It All Together: Turning Needs and Strengths Into Self-Advocacy
When we understand and accept our needs and strengths, we can advocate with confidence and clarity. Rather than just thinking, “This doesn’t work for me,” we learn to say, “Here’s what helps me succeed.”
Self-advocacy is a skill that develops over time. It often takes years of modeling, conversation, and gentle reinforcement for a child to confidently indicate the tools, environments, supports, or accommodations they need to thrive. Let’s look at some ways self-advocacy can be communicated.
Verbal Examples
“I do my best work after a sensory break. I need five minutes to swing before starting.”
“I understand this better when I can see it. Can we turn it into a visual or a diagram?”
“I’m great at focusing when I can move. I need to bounce on a yoga ball to help me pay attention.”
“I can give my best effort on tests when I have extra time for processing.”
These statements do more than describe needs. They also highlight how someone operates best. They shift the conversation from “what’s wrong” to “what works."
Nonverbal/Alternative Communication Examples
Using picture cards, the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS), or visual schedules to communicate needs
Writing out or typing needs
Using gestures, sign language, or body signals (e.g., a hand sign to indicate “I need a break”)
Using a communication device or app to express preferences
Sometimes, we need a combination of verbal and nonverbal communications. For example, at the doctor's office, my son was asked multiple questions for a survey, and he responded best when the nurse let him see the screen and read along as she spoke. Once he could see the words and read them, he processed the questions well and could provide accurate verbal answers.
Self-advocacy can take many forms. Supporting people in the way that works best for them ensures everyone’s voice is heard.
Need help starting the process? Below is a great place to start.
Creating a Needs and Strengths Map
A Needs and Strengths Map is a visual way to capture what helps someone thrive and what they do best. You can make it together with your child, using words, pictures, icons, or any combination.
Step 1: Divide the page (or board, or app screen) into two sections:
What I Need – Spaces to note things like:
Quiet space to focus
Movement breaks
Predictable routine
Sensory tools (e.g., headphones, fidget toys)
What I’m Good At / My Strengths – Spaces to note things like:
Attention to detail
Deep knowledge of a favorite topic
Creativity
Problem-solving
Step 2: Add visuals or icons for clarity
For younger children or nonverbal communicators, use pictures, emojis, or color-coded symbols.
For example, a swing icon could represent “movement break,” a star could highlight a strength, or a clock could show “extra time needed.”
Step 3: Personalize it
Encourage your child to use pictures, stickers, or typed words to fill in their map.
You can also add a “Helpful Tools” section if it makes sense: e.g., apps, visual schedules, or communication devices.
Step 4: Display it where it’s accessible
Keep it in a binder, on a wall, or digitally on a tablet.
Revisit and update the map regularly as needs and strengths change.
Tip: Completing your own map alongside your child models self-awareness and self-advocacy. You can show that everyone – adult or child – has needs and strengths that matter.
Seeing specific needs and strengths together can be empowering, reminding everyone that our brains are uniquely wired and that our differences have strengths.
When we communicate from a place of self-knowledge, we invite others to meet us where we’re at. This builds understanding, as well as facilitates requests for change, support, or accommodations.
Self-Advocacy Grows from Self-Acceptance
Self-advocacy starts with understanding yourself well enough to know what helps your thrive – and trusting that your needs and strengths matter.
Accepting our own differences allows us to stop measuring ourselves against what’s “typical” and focus on what works for us. When children see their parents speaking kindly about their own limits and strengths, they learn that self-advocacy is rooted in awareness and self-respect.
Embracing neurodivergent ways of thinking, feeling, and communicating reminds us there’s no single “right” way to be human. Self-advocacy involves looking at ourselves and our needs with curiosity, not judgment.
Jen with Cool Wiring
Author’s Note
I’m a neurodivergent mom raising neurodivergent kids, and I write from the understanding that neurodiversity is a valuable part of human diversity. The neurodiversity paradigm shapes how I communicate with my children and myself, honoring our differences, celebrating our strengths, and choosing language that affirms who we are.
This series on self-advocacy is written with both neurodivergent children and parents in mind. As we support our kids in learning to understand and advocate for themselves, we often find opportunities to do the same by embracing our own needs, honoring our unique ways of being, and growing together with compassion, curiosity, and authenticity.
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