How to Advocate for Your Child: Lessons from a Powerful Parent

A Not-So-Understanding World

In the early 2000s, awareness of food allergies was limited at best. "May contain" labels were uncommon, friends and family often responded with skepticism and disbelief, and some schools turned away children with severe allergies altogether.

As I approached the age to begin school, my mom searched high and low for a place that could keep me safe. Even when she found the right elementary school, a significant gap in understanding remained. Teachers, staff, and administrators weren't always prepared or even open to the responsibility of caring for a child with life-threatening allergies. 

So my mom stepped in. 

She held meetings to educate staff and students, ensured lunchtime was safe for any child with food allergies, and planned every class party so I could participate like any other kid, eating freely, without fear of a reaction. Not a single field trip went by without her there, just in case.

She was there at school every single day to ensure my safety. 

At school, my mom was notoriously known as the “food allergy mom.” Teachers, parents, and staff rolled their eyes at the idea of adopting a new way of caring and looking out for students. They didn’t understand why she was fighting so hard, or how serious these so-called “food allergies” truly were. But for her, and for me, it was life or death. 

Amidst her powerful advocacy, she experienced strong feelings of rejection, loneliness, and ostracization by unaccepting adults.

“I felt bullied for loving my kid.”

Instinctually, she knew how important it was for her to be my voice. Because of her, I now know how to be a strong leader and advocate for myself, not only with food allergies, but in every area of life.

How to Advocate for Your Child

Even without a life-threatening diagnosis or disability, all parents eventually face moments where they need to step in and advocate for their child. Whether that's ensuring the right classroom placement, addressing bullying, or navigating a school system that doesn't yet understand their child's needs, a parent will need to be equipped to step in for their child’s wellbeing.

Here are some things to keep in mind when you advocate for your child:

Proactive & Impactful Communication

When it comes to advocating for your child's needs, it is important to keep open, consistent, and peaceful communication with the adults and peers in your child’s community. It’s critical for the adults in your child’s life to be aware of how to best support them.

Some ways to practice proactive and impactful communication can look like:

• Holding a meeting to talk with the appropriate school staff about your child’s needs.
• Visiting each one of your child’s teachers to talk with them one-on-one about your child.
• Informing family and friends about your child’s needs. 

Build a Team of Professionals

Having professionals on your side adds credibility to your advocacy and reminds you that you're not alone.

These professionals can include:

• Doctors and medical professionals
• Therapists and mental health professionals
• Experts in your child’s specific need area
• Associations focused on your child’s specific disability or needs
• Other parents of children with disabilities or special needs 
• Other family members, friends, and neighbors

AProfessional Parenting Coach can also be a valuable addition and can serve as a caring and empathetic witness while you navigate advocating for your child. A Parenting Coach can also provide tools to help you show up for your child in times of stress and overwhelm.

Stay Positive and Persistent

Advocating for your child can often be a long process that can take a significant emotional and mental toll on your personal wellbeing. Stay persistent and know that your work to support the health and wellness of your child is worth it, even if at times your progress feels invisible.

Teaching Your Child How to Advocate for Themselves

The Importance of Educating and Empowering Your Children

Parents are powerful advocates, but children are their own best advocates too. When parents are not there and a situation arises that threatens their physical, emotional, or mental safety, it’s up to children to exercise their self-advocacy. Especially as children get older, they will have to navigate their own lives as they grow into their independence, as they do in high school, college, and young adulthood.

Learning self-advocacy early on sets the foundation for a lifetime of confidence and safety.

Meet Them Where They Are Developmentally

When teaching children how to advocate for themselves, it’s important to keep in mind the limitations of their current stage of brain development. For example, what a parent may request of a high school student will look extremely different than a 5th-grader.

At a very young age, parents will naturally carry more of the responsibility for their child, however, they can still model what self-advocacy looks like in practice. It’s important to offer examples that empower children without instilling unnecessary fear or overwhelm.

As children get older and into their teen years, we can begin to encourage them to advocate for themselves. For example, they can carry their own medication, or notify teachers themselves of their conditions, or opt out of trips and activities that will threaten their physical or mental wellbeing.

This is a process that has to do with brain development, but most importantly, it’s about where your child is uniquely at. Every child is different, so attuning to the needs of the child in front of you is the most important part of having developmentally appropriate expectations.

The Importance of Your Child's Voice

When parents are not there, a child’s voice is the best chance that they have for keeping themselves safe. Teaching children how to advocate for themselves, and giving them appropriate opportunities to self-advocate, equips them with lifelong skills.

Self-advocacy can be a scary thing, especially for a developing brain. It’s vulnerable to put yourself out there in the world and speak your needs when they may not be openly received. It’s vital to start teaching children how to advocate for themselves early on so that they can experience confidence and security around self-advocacy, rather than fear and shame.

Creating Strong-Minded and Hearted Kids

Raising children who are well-versed in self-advocacy isn’t just about the advocacy. It’s about the values behind it. 

It’s about raising kids who are confident, resilient, and not afraid to stand up for what they believe in. This is the natural result of teaching kids that they’re valid and can always stand up for their values, limits, and boundaries with kindness and compassion.

“Being at home I can protect you, but out in the real world people won’t be so kind.”

“Toughening them up for the real world” doesn’t prepare children to be treated well. What prepares them to be treated well in the real world is treating them well at home first.

Now being in young adulthood, I don’t think twice about being deserving of respect and understanding, whether it is in friendships, romantic, or professional relationships. 

A parent's role is to nurture their children into confident, resilient adults, who know themselves, know their needs, and will go where their needs will be met. When parents show their children how they should be treated, that is what they will seek out in adulthood.

When Adults Push Back

Inevitably, there may be parents, family members, friends, educators, or caregivers that outwardly disagree with you and your advocacy for your child. In my mom’s case, this happened with the majority at my school. She feared that her advocacy would never be fruitful, and even feared that if she failed, what social situation would that leave me in? Would I be judged and ostracized by not only my peers, but my teachers too?

She continued to step out of her comfort zone and fight for me, no matter how uncomfortable the pushback and judgment would be. Over time, staff and parents began to gain more of an understanding, and then a deep respect for my mom. They no longer saw her as “the food allergy mom,” they saw a mom who loved and would do anything for her child. 

When adults push back against your advocacy, remember: their opinions are temporary. Your love for your child isn’t.

Taking Care of Yourself When Advocating for Your Child

Whether it’s carving out time to physically or mentally recharge, or if it’s leaning on community, taking care of yourself is an important part of your advocacy. You deserve rest, recovery, and connection to continue to be a potent advocate for your child.

Resting In the Support And Solidarity of A Community

One thing my mom wishes she knew then that she knows now is the importance of community and support. Seeking out support instead of reinventing the wheel can save you significant grief and burnout. Every parent needs someone who can help.

When she found a food allergy awareness and research group, FARE (then known as FAAN), it was an immediate relief.

“Someone understood me, I wasn’t making it up, and I wasn’t overreacting.”

Advocating for your child can be an emotional fight, and having a community that understands, and experts or professionals within that community that can be your advocate, is invaluable. 

Although it wasn’t an easy journey, my mom wouldn’t have it any other way. Navigating through the difficult parts of advocacy so that I could have a balanced and safe childhood was beyond worth it to her.

Advocating for me didn’t just positively change my life and my experience at school, it also allowed my mom to become more confident, resilient, and open to conflict resolution. It transformed her as a parent and a person.

Her advocacy and leadership laid down the foundation for future children with food allergies to have a safe and fulfilling experience at that school. Future parents would no longer have to worry and fight hard for what their child with food allergies deserves.

A parent’s advocacy and leadership doesn’t end with their kids. It helps shape a safer, more compassionate future for all children.

My experience working at the Jai Institute has given me both the language and context to articulate how I learned to become an advocate for myself through my mom. Learn more about the work we do at the Jai Institute for Parenting here.

Meet Your Author, Sonja Starrick

Sonja Starrick is a writer and content strategist for the Jai Institute for Parenting. Rooted in a lifelong curiosity about human relationships and personal growth, she brings genuine investment in Jai's mission to everything she creates, from social media to long-form articles.

Though not a parent herself, the values at the heart of Jai's work, honest self-examination, personal transformation, the belief that when we do the inner work, everyone around us benefits, are ones she has carried long before she ever came to Jai.