I think the term self-advocacy has a very different connotation on a forum like this than what you're talking about, Edwin. The average ND child doesn't have major mismatches in school, so self-advocacy really means standing up for yourself in small ways, as you're describing. I'm all in favor of that. I think virtually all kids can and should do this from a very young age. If someone pushes my 4yo in line, I expect him to deal with it. If his friend is mean to him, I expect him to tell the kid (nicely) to knock it off, and if he doesn't knock it off, then I expect him to talk to the teacher about it.
No argument there.
But on this forum, I think advocacy is a much more loaded term. I wouldn't call the exchange I just described advocacy at all. That's just basic social skills, you know?
To me, advocacy means asking for the appropriate level of schoolwork. That's doggone hard to do without insulting the teacher, even for a socially skilled adult.
I think we may just be talking about different things here...
