Right red and yellow cards.. ( trying to think of the best way to explain.. Because the way we use them is linked to the work we have aleady done with the anger volcano and emotion recognition sheet.. But I'll explain that bit in brief:) )
the best way to describethe anger volcano is that it is very similar to the behavioural iceburg on the NAS site.
But what we have done is work with ds2 to make his own volcano.. I drew a volcano on a bit of paper.. Then drew a line across it for the ground ( the things that are calm for ds.. Like some stims or audiobooks etc).. Above the ground are things that make him angry... The little things near the ground the big thing near the top... We asked him to name and put those thing where they should be..
Ds2 recognises simple emotions.. But doesn't get the idea of the more complex ones like frustration.. irritation etc etc .. So everything is either okay or angry.. We watched him and named when he was feeling the other emotions.. And on the sheet is written by them, what his body is physically doing.. I.e breathing faster or tight tummy muscles.. Etc
and also stratagies of what he can do about them.. Count to ten and regulate breathing etc..( based on his calm part of the volcano).
Then we moved to traffic lights he has a marker to show where he is.. And what he needs to do.. So green is good so he gets to choose. Amber is irritated, worried, getting overloaded etc.. The statagy for that is ten minutes doing something calming to him, talk about it ( 10 mins as he can obsess and keep on and on ) and when he has move back to green he's good so then chooses again.
Red is angry or totally overwhelmed etc.. That is an imediate go to safe space and wait to be told he can move to Amber. And so it follows down through the colours.
So then we have red and yellow cards that totally relate to the traffic lights.. we use these if he doesn't recognise his own emotions. So if he's getting wound up.. And doesn't see it.. We pull the parent yellow card.. He goes to traffic lights and emotions board.. And works out what to do.
If he lashes out or is getting totally overwhelmed we pull the red card.. He goes straight to safe space..
Basically the traffic lights are for him to self help the cards are for us to step in.
It's flipping hard work.. But we are slowly getting there..
Hope all of that made sense.. :).
Big thing is that it is totally okay to feel angry.. But violence or destruction as an outlet is not on and there are other things you can do.
Oh because he is so big sometimes he can't make it to safe space.. So a red card in that situation is accompanied by everyone else moving away from him until he can get to the point of getting to safe space.