It is really good that you have some experience (even though it isn't with 2 year olds!!) It's great that you want to help mum (and I hope she's grateful too).
With regards to the pictures/posters of happy and sad - I have found that they can lose their importance/signifcance over time - as when the child was happy about a certain thing they were shown/connected it to the poster, but when they are then happy about a different thing, the poster is not connected.
For example, if X was happy about having cake after dinner and connected it/was shown the happy poster - X started connecting the happiness of having cake with the happy poster. Then when X was 'happy' about going to the park, the happy poster could not be connected in X's head because the 'happy' feeling from the cake is slightly different to the happy feeling from the 'happy' feeling from the park. I hope that makes sense.
It works similiarly for the sad/angry. I think what we did that worked really well was take photos of X when he was just going through the gate of the park for example, and then write underneath 'happy feelings because we are going to the park'. We even took photos of him lay on the ground in the park screaming because it was time to go home and underneath this one we wrote 'angry because it is time to leave the park'. There ended up being quite a large number of photos, but over time we could almost predict how X would feel and would help him by producing the photo and talking calmly about it! For example, as we were about to leave the park we would show the lay on the ground photo and read out loud to him 'I am angry because it is time to leave the park' and would say things like 'I know that leaving the park makes you feel very angry, but we must go back to the house for lunch (or whatever) and we will come back to the park tomorrow (or Monday or whenever)'. It did get to the point where we'd HAVE to go the park tomorrow/Monday because we'd 'promised' him, but showing him these pictures and explaining it was ok to feel angry, but not really ok to lay on the ground and scream really seemed to help. I think it was difficult for X to describe how he felt (as he really didn't say much at all), but these pictures helped him to describe it and we could understand. When X became about 7 he was able to flick through the photos and tell us what he was feeling from the pictures!! It think we eventually went down to about 1 or 2 tantrums a week, rather than at least 1 or 2 per day (more like 5 or 6 in the beginning, I'm sure!!)
Oh, we had X from 4 and a half (ish) and he didn't get diagnosed until around about the time he came to us!
I hope something will work out for you (if it's photos or something else)!! Good luck! x
Just when I find the key to success, someone comes along and changes all the locks!
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