Welcome back to our Self-Advocacy at Home Series, where we have been examining the ways that parents and caregivers can create a safe environment at home for building self-advocacy skills with the Autistic person or people they are supporting. 

In Part 1 we divided the big picture concept of self-advocacy into some smaller categories and in Part 2 we shared some ideas for building a broadly supportive self-advocacy space. 

In Part 3 we are considering the process of choice-making across the day and taking a closer look at the situations in which we are most commonly making choices in our day to day lives.

Everyone is in a different place when it comes to making choices. For some, too many options can cause decision paralysis whereas for others making a high volume of decisions can lead to burnout. One of the most crucial parts of offering choices is meeting the person you are supporting where they are and being prepared to listen when they decide they are not prepared to make a choice right now. But we can still strategize around some areas with common day-to-day decision points to prepare for those times when we are ready!

Food is one of our most common decision points throughout the day and for some people, it can be a daunting decision point! After all, any given time we are hungry there is no shortage of options we could pursue. 

For some, the sheer volume of options can lead to decision paralysis, while for others the executive functioning component of certain meals can feel like a big barrier. Helping offer some options that are familiar and achievable to the extent that is most comfortable for the individual you are supporting can be a big difference maker in encouraging food points. 

If someone can only choose between a few safe foods on a given day then it is better to be able to make that choice than to be stuck on a broader set of options. As the person you are supporting expresses more comfort with the current decision-making process, that can be a great time to introduce a wider variety of choices to see if it is a good fit!

Clothing is another area where decision paralysis can be a major factor for many people in getting dressed in the morning, but many people also want a degree of autonomy in choosing their own outfits. 

A great way to approach self-advocacy in clothing is to start a conversation with the person you are supporting. In what ways do you feel able to offer help? What would they feel most comfortable incorporating into their decision-making process? Having you choose an outfit for them? Choosing between a number of their own outfits? 

Developing a decision-making process for daily outfits together? Meeting people where they are when it comes to clothing is a great way to maintain life points and relationships.

Personal routine is a crucial building block of daily living and when we are living independently it is ultimately up to us the order in which we think we can best and most sustainably complete the tasks we need. 

One great way to approach this topic is in the context of preparing for independent living, and trying out different tools to help sustain a personal routine within a reasonable daily time frame. As we make different choices about our daily routines, we can also evaluate whether those choices turn out to be the most helpful in maintaining the routine that meets the needs of the person we are supporting while remaining sustainable over time.

Everyone needs some personal time in which it’s entirely up to us what we want to do given our available resources. 

Supporting self-advocacy in personal time is a threefold task: being able to sometimes offer resources when needed, being able to sometimes offer choices when requested, and refraining from making value judgments on how a given individual chooses to spend their free time.

Making decisions about how to spend family time is both a strong endorsement of an individual’s agency in sharing their preferences and choices with the household and a potentially daunting decision given the sheer number of options available and the pressure of choosing an option that every family member can enjoy. 

When offering choices pertaining to family time it may help to lead with discussing the opportunity to choose what the family does with a certain period of time before getting into specific choices. The person you are supporting may want the opportunity to share their concerns or preferences, and you can both agree from there whether it makes the most sense to present some options to them or let them figure it out on their own. 

Encouraging self-advocacy in this space is a great and safe way to advocate for our opinions and preferences for a group without the stakes that can sometimes come with the outside world.

Day-to-day choices can be routine or overwhelming, simple or complex, for fun or for necessity. The choices may evolve over time but the ways we can support the people making those choices remain the same, and we hope these frameworks have offered some inspiration in how best to do that. 

In the meantime, if you’d like to see us cover topics related to self-advocacy at home more in-depth then we’d love to hear from you! Just drop us a line at hello@autismgrownup.com and we will be back in Part 4 to talk about troubleshooting common issues!