Case Study: Kim and Alfie's Story
How Alfie is overcoming his worries about making mistakes.
“On Friday night he was doing his ‘happy self journal’ and he started writing on a page where he’d previously written a different date. He said “nevermind I’ll just cross out that date and put in today’s date”. That would have been a major disaster previously. Crossing anything out, it not being perfect on a page. He even used to get upset about using a rubber to rub anything out.”
Meet 9-year-old Alfie, who lives in South Yorkshire.
Alfie lives with his mum, dad, grandma, grandad, little brother and ‘Ivy Snowflake’ the hamster. Alfie loves life. His average day is filled with skate parks, audio books, building his own gaming arcade, meeting friends at the park and Cubs and generally enjoying learning… “I don't really have a favourite part of the week,” he says. ”I honestly just enjoy the week normally… once English and Maths Factor is over and done with” of course!
Alfie is very comfortable meeting other people. His face breaks into a big grin when he talks about seeing friends and trying new activities. Kim takes pleasure from seeing her son ”going to any new activity that he’s never tried before and not knowing any other child and just chatting and playing a game.”
“I'm a social guy!” smiles Alfie. “Yeah, I just go in thinking this is going to be awesome.”
But something changes in Alfie when he gets things wrong. He’s a different boy when he’s at home working on his maths, or something new that he might get wrong. “You get a score at the end of maths factor,” he explains, “and I'm a perfectionist. I want to get 24 out of 24 questions. If I get 23, I get annoyed. I normally bury my head in the pillow.”
Kim finds it hard to coax him out of the pillow. All the hugs, and reassuring words in the world don’t seem to help him feel better. She can see the frustration building up when Alfie doesn’t beat his best score. “He will close the computer and reopen it to reset the whole module so that he can then do it again or he will repeat it over and over. If it's a new topic, he'll automatically get anxious and stressed before he's even tried it. The first two or three sessions can be very challenging and anxiety inducing and lots of frustration and screeching. And then when he realises he's actually learning it and kind of figures out and knows what he's doing, then he'll settle into it, but then we're back into the usual - if he doesn't think he's gonna get a question right then he's not happy about it. He'll close the computer completely and then start it again so he can undo the mistake.”
Kim has tried all sorts to help Alfie feel better about making mistakes. From telling him how much he is loved and sharing her own experiences of making mistakes, to reading tales of famous mistakes which have led to great discoveries… from taking his mind off the mistake by distracting him with an entertaining story to taking him on the trampoline to jump his frustrations away. “So those are the kind of things we try, but we still have this huge stress and anxiety and like… almost the anticipation of getting something wrong.”
“It’s just internal anger really” muses Aflie. Kim reflects, “if you think back, even when he was little, he’s always wanted to get everything right. He's a flight child, so if it's gone wrong he runs off and hides. He'll run off upstairs and he'll bury his head and his whole body under the duvet and he won't want to look at anybody. And he’ll worry about being [in a room] by himself in the house. So I can send him to any activity anywhere where he has no idea who anybody is and he’ll go join in and be fine. But in the house sometimes he’ll want me to come with him.” “It bothers me,” says Alfie. “I mean, it's normally night time when that happens, when it's dark, and that's when the switch flicks.”
Taking a step to face Alfie’s worries with Lumi Nova
Kim is keen to teach Alfie how the brain works and what feelings are. “We’re trying to kind of help him understand how emotions are completely normal and how to respond when his emotions change, which I think helps. And then we thought we’d try Lumi Nova, because he likes gaming.” “I do enjoy gaming!” enthuses Alfie.
Lumi Nova is an evidence-based mobile game which uses an approach appealing to young people.
“It still upsets me but it’s getting better”
Noticing changes since playing Lumi Nova, and chipping away at anxiety
Alfie and Kim are working incredibly hard at overcoming Alfie’s fear of making mistakes. It hasn’t been easy and Lumi Nova hasn’t been an instant fix. Alfie’s reaction to that first challenge was to rate his anxiety at a full 5 out of 5. In many ways that might have been enough to put him off trying again, but through sheer determination he went on to repeat this challenge several more times. Kim realised that Alfie had begun to respond to his usual difficulties in a slightly more positive way. “On Friday night he was doing his ‘happy self journal’ and he started writing on a page where he’d previously written a different date. He said “nevermind I’ll just cross out that date and put in today’s date”. That would have been a major disaster previously. Crossing anything out, it not being perfect on a page. He even used to get upset about using a rubber to rub anything out.”
Alfie’s scores have consistently shown his anxiety reducing each time he has practised the challenge, until his score reached almost zero. In his own words: “It still upsets me but it’s getting better”. He has shown great tenacity in successfully reaching challenge two, which his scores show to be less distressing for him. “He is still curling up in a ball and crying about it. But not as much and he recovers quicker.”
Alfie’s ultimate goal is to overcome his fear of making a mistake. This ultimate goal may have once felt unreachable but Kim has built them a ladder and now they want to keep climbing. “We are happy, he is very proud of himself. We’ll just keep repeating until his scores are really low.”
“We are happy, he is very proud of himself. We’ll just keep repeating until his scores are really low.”