What color are you?

Sounds like a Facebook survey that pops up on occasion. What color are you? What color best describes your mood, your affect, your true self? INSIDE OUT is one of those movies for us that was an " yes !!! " moment. The movie describes emotions as characters inside your body, which all had a color associated to them. How perfect for someone who has trouble communicating feelings and emotions. At Robbie's school they have developed a similar language of emotion or as they refer to them, zones of regulation. The colors are slightly different than the movie but the concepts are even more in depth. For example the "Green Zone" is good. Feeling ok, calm, focused, happy and ready to learn. There is a picture of the character Joy. She is always happy and smiling. The "Red zone" is as you would imagine, anger,mad, yelling, hitting, out of control. The " Blue Zone" is sad, tired, sick, bored, moving slowly. Robbie has been a champion of " I'm sad!!" While making the sad face motion on his face to elevate the expression and ensure we understand. This has been a fairly consistent part of every day. The "Yellow Zone" is worried, frustrated, excited, silly, loss of some control with a picture of the fear character. The "Pink Zone" shows an image of "Bing bong" who was Reilly's ( the main character in the movie) childhood imaginary friend. Part elephant, part dolphin, and few other animals along with a rainbow flower. This zone is for excellent, outstanding, awesome, imaginary, super. The imaginary term I find interesting as much of the time getting Robbie out of his imaginary world can be a challenge. Yet theses zones seem to work. Robbie has small laminated pictures on a key ring he can carry with him. His teacher said she purchased the figurines to leave his desk. This helps him articulate and understand his emotions. It's all pretty cool stuff and helping our son manage. I am also happy to report the new medication really seems to be helping with anxiety and aggressive behaviors. This past weekend Robbie went to Robs basketball practice in the morning without argument and later went to a birthday party at Pump it up. Two outings in one day are incredible as the past few months it's been nearly impossible to get him to go anywhere other than school, and some days that has been tortuous. He seems to be able to get himself in check more easily. If he gets agitated and yells, he can calm himself down, self regulate. This has been an impossible skill the last few months. Additionally he is more present, for more of the time. He seemed lost in his head more than ever the last few months but over the last 2-3 weeks we are seeing more of Robbie. He is talking about what he is watching on his iPad. Describing the scene and acting it out for us, instead of scripting it to himself. Don't get me wrong, there is still a lot of stimming but I feel we're almost back to our normal. I mentioned to another autism mom friend at the birthday party it has felt as if we are prisoners in our own home. Yes he could be left with a sitter for the occasional night out but we also missed doing things as a family. I missed my Robbie. That is exactly what I said to him at the start of last week. " Robbie, I've missed you. I love you. I am proud for you and I am so happy your back!" As always we are taking things day by day, but for today at least I can smile and breath easily, looking forward to seeing my oldest son after school and getting a glimpse of his day and a warm hug.