Modeling Self-Advocacy Skills to Support Social and Emotional Learning
Avery, an outgoing child who enjoys greeting her friends and teachers with hugs, runs over to Cam, another 4-year-old in her class. She wraps her arms around him in a friendly hug as she arrives in the classroom. Their teacher, Mrs. Hassan, notices that Cam, a child with autism spectrum disorder, doesn’ t outright reject Avery’ s display of affection, but he shrinks away and grimaces.
Mrs. Hassan wonders if Cam is uncomfortable with this physical touch. She has observed that he covers his ears during music time and never seems to get enough of the water table. She has also observed that Cam loves to look at books, usually by himself, and he excels in helping with the classroom calendar. Avery, on the other hand, likes to sing along at circle time and prefers reading books with others. She excels at gathering the other children to play together.
Mrs. Hassan pulls Cam aside after Avery returns to the block area, and asks,“ Do you like to get hugs from friends?” Cam shakes his head no and squeezes his eyes shut.
“ That’ s okay!” Mrs. Hassan reassures him.“ You can still be friends and say,‘ No, thank you’ to hugs.”
In the above vignette, Cam demonstrated coping with his discomfort: He tolerated a physical greeting even though he didn’ t like it. Mrs. Hassan recognized that Cam needed support building self-awareness around his own sensory needs and his feelings. She also observed that Cam might have needed support to express his concern to Avery or other children. She wanted to help Cam start to notice his own likes and dislikes, which would help him understand and navigate his own strengths, needs, preferences, and interests.
To help build Cam’ s self-awareness, Mrs. Hassan asked him a yes / no question about this social and physical interaction(“ Do you like to get hugs from friends?”). Educators can also use open-ended questions(“ How do you like to say hello to a friend?”) or present options(“ Would you like to hug, high-five, say hi, or wave?”) to support children’ s self-awareness skills. Intentional educators understand the importance of scaffolding questions based on children’ s communication needs to address self-advocacy skills and social and emotional learning. They also consider children’ s contexts and individual strengths and needs. This aligns with the guidelines in NAEYC’ s position statement on developmentally appropriate practice, including those related to teaching practices and curriculum.
When Mrs. Hassan asked Cam if he liked getting hugs and validated his negative response, she showed him it’ s okay to feel uncomfortable and to express that discomfort. Educators can encourage self-advocacy in young children by acknowledging that all feelings( including dislike or discomfort) are valid and by teaching self-management strategies that promote children’ s agency. These strategies can include
› Naming emotions and teaching children to identify their feelings
› Asking questions with curiosity
54 Educating Young Children
Summer 2026