The following is an excerpt from Name and Tame Your Anxiety: A Kid’s Guide by Summer Batte. It was published in April 2021 by Free Spirit Publishing. The book aims to give kids ages 9–13 practical strategies for managing their anxiety.
Self-Advocacy
When you were younger, you probably had an adult explain to other adults what you needed. Maybe your mom explained to a teacher that you get nervous about being called on in school. Or perhaps the principal explained to your gym teacher that you feel less anxious and more able to participate if you know ahead of time what you’ll be doing in class. And then the adults worked out a plan to help you manage your anxiety. An adult advocated for you by explaining what you needed in order to be successful.
Advocate: (AD-vo-kate). To support or champion another person’s cause or needs. To self-advocate means to stand up for your own needs. As a noun, an advocate (AD-vo-ket) is a person who stands up for others’ needs. A self-advocate is a person who stands up for their own needs.
As you get older, it’s important to be able to advocate for yourself. Being a self-advocate means understanding the things that you are good at and that you like as well as the things that are more difficult for you. When you self-advocate, you are not complaining or asking to get out of doing something. You are explaining the reason something is difficult for you and asking for help (also called an accommodation) to make it possible for you to do it. Self-advocacy gets you the help you need from other people.
If you are self-advocating about anxiety, it works best if you also explain to the person that you are working on managing your anxiety. Together, you can work out an accommodation to help you. An accommodation may be temporary, or it may last a long time. In either case, the goal of the accommodation is to help you get better and better at managing anxiety.
Accommodation: An adjustment or adaptation to fit a specific person’s needs.
When to Self-Advocate
You can self-advocate any time—at home, in a class, or even when you are visiting someone else’s home. And you can explain your needs to adults or to other kids. Any time you need help, it is okay to ask for it! But when you are asking another person to help you by making a change or accommodation that is big or that may last a long time, getting the timing right can make a positive difference. To get what you need, it’s best if you can talk to the person when you are feeling relatively unworried and when the other person is not too busy to really listen. Not-so-good times to self-advocate are when the other person is in a hurry, when they need to pay attention to others, or after plans have already been finalized. Times when you probably want to wait include:- Right in the middle of class when your teacher is teaching or just as your soccer coach puts you in to play
- In the morning when your parent is scrambling to get everyone out the door
- Right when you arrive at your cousin’s house
- During theater practice or right when the curtain is about to open
- When your friend has exciting news to share with you or when there are lots of other kids around
- Before or after school or practice, so your teacher or coach isn’t distracted by other students
- At dinner, on the weekend, or another time when your parent isn’t in a hurry
- Before you go to your cousin’s house, or during a quiet moment while you are visiting
- Before or after practice, or as far ahead of a performance as possible, so your theater or music director has time to make a change
- When you and your friend are alone and have time to talk (in-person is usually better than texting)
How to Self-Advocate
Being a self-advocate means communicating what you need to another person—sitting down to have a chat or a meeting. You might feel anxious at the thought of meeting with someone to talk about anxiety. That’s understandable! There are some things you can do to help yourself self-advocate and feel less anxious during a meeting or conversation.
Organize and write down your thoughts before you meet. Write down the problem or the situation that is causing your anxiety, and how you feel when it happens. If you have ideas for possible accommodations or solutions, write those down too. Bring what you wrote to the meeting to help you remember all your thoughts.
Practice what you’ll say. Just like practicing for a presentation in class, practicing what you’ll say in the meeting can help you feel more prepared and confident. An older sibling or a parent might be willing to play the role of the person you will be talking to, or you can practice in front of a mirror.
Bring some support. You and the person who can help you should do most of the talking, but you might feel better if a parent, grandparent, best friend, or sibling is with you. Your support person can have the job of listening and helping you remember what was said later on. That way, even if you feel nervous and forget some of the conversation, you’ll have someone who can help remind you later. If you can’t bring another person with you, you can bring a notebook and take notes.
Thank the person for meeting with you. It’s important to thank the person at the beginning of the conversation for making time to talk with you, especially if you’ve set up a special meeting time. It shows that you appreciate the person, and when people feel appreciated, they become more interested in helping. (It’s always a good idea to thank the person at the end of the conversation too!)
Use I-messages. When you speak to someone about needing support or an accommodation, it can help to put your words in a certain order:
When ___ happens, I feel ____. It would help me if ______.
(If you don’t know what would help, just ask the adult to help you figure that out!) An I-message or I-statement is a way to assertively state your feelings and ask for what you need without blaming or attacking the other person.
Be assertive. When asking for an accommodation, sit or stand up straight and look at the person you are talking to. Eye contact is great, but if you feel uncomfortable, it is okay to look just to the side of the person’s face. Make sure to speak clearly and loudly enough for the other person to hear you.
Assertive: Having confident statements and behavior.
Expect questions and new ideas. The other person may want to know more about how you feel. You can answer their questions honestly. If you can’t think of an answer, it’s okay to say so or to ask if you can think about it for a while. The other person may also have new ideas about how they can help. This is great! You might decide right then that their idea will work, or you might ask if you can think about the idea and meet again in a few days.
Write down the plan. If you and the other person agree on an accommodation that can help you, write down what was decided. This way you can read the plan later to remind yourself about what will happen. Writing down the plan and sharing it with the person who will be helping you makes sure that you both have the same expectations.
After you’ve met and agreed on a certain accommodation or plan, you might check in after a few days or weeks to see how things are going. You can also ask for a new or different accommodation later if the first one isn’t working.
Adapted from Name and Tame Your Anxiety: A Kid’s Guide by Summer Batte, copyright © 2021. Used with permission of Free Spirit Publishing Inc., Minneapolis, MN; 800-735-7323; www.freespirit.com. All rights reserved.
The book is available now. You can learn more about author Summer Batte here.
