“A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way”.
- Mark Twain.
I am going to tell you a story. Most of you guys who are parents know that at some point you will be left alone to take care of your kids. Usually, it’s the mother who spends most of her time dealing with our young children and so it is obviously fair that dad take his turn in taking care of the kids so that mom can go out with her friends and generally distract herself. Fair and also sane on the fathers part, that is if their survival instinct is intact, and they wish for peace in the household!
Anyway, on one such occasion my wife went out on a Saturday afternoon, leaving me with my 2 infant sons. The youngest must have been just a few months old and my eldest around 3. No biggie. Easy peasy. The youngest barely crawled and mostly lay on his stomach chewing whatever object fell into his grasp. The eldest, super well behaved. Or so I thought.
My wife stopped at the door with a nervous look and asked “Vas a estar bien?” Will you be ok? “Pos si mija! Soy Juancamaney” Of course my dear! I’m Juan Come on! Hey! Famous last words. I could see trepidation in her eyes as she shut the door as she left. She needed a break. Let loose the dogs!!!
Anyway, as it were, there was a Chivas game on the tube and I needed to get ready. I set the youngest in his play pen. The eldest was playing with his Jedi action figures in his room (big Star Wars fan to date). I went to the kitchen prepared myself some tacos from the carnitas I had gone to pick up before the Missus left. La salcita, un poco de sal y limon y mi coca con harto hielo. HEAVEN!!!
As I was doing so, there was an electrical surge. The light flickered on and off and my eldest came running out of his room!!! He ran towards the living room and sat down in front of the window, his eyes wide with fright.
I rushed over to him and said “Estas bien? Que paso?” Are you ok? What happened? He just looked at me and said “No se.” I don’t know.
After making sure he was ok I went to his room. Everything seemed to be in order. Everything except for the scissors sticking out of the electrical socket!!! Oh my GOD! I could almost feel the blood leave my extremities and settle in the pit of my stomach.
I went back and checked my son for burns or any other sign of injury. Nada! Thank the Lord! As we sat there I asked what happened again and he kept answer I don’t know I don’t know. I took him back into his room and I pointed to the socket. Never do that again my son. You could hurt yourself badly. You could even die. He nodded his head and started crying.
Later that day I went to the hardware store and bought a set of socket protectors for each socket in the house. I was really freaked out. A tragedy had been avoided.
A couple of weeks later my wife had arranged to go out with her friends for lunch again. She was oblivious to what happened on here previous outing. After all there are things we share with our spouses and there are things we do not. Lo que pasa en Las Vegas se queda en Las Vegas.
This time as she left she gave me a kiss and a confident smile. “I will be back later.” She said as she waved goodbye. Again it was game day! I prepared my garnachas and set up camp in the bedroom. The youngest sitting with me and chewing on a potato chip. The eldest in his bedroom doing his thing.
I don’t exactly remember the score, nor who Chivas were playing. It has all been erased from my memory. All I can recall was a loud ZZZZZZZ! The electricity going out and my eldest running wildy from his bedroom, arms waving above his head!!!
Que chingaos?!! Again? It couldn’t be. I mean, the kid is pretty sharp, super creative and intelligent. Ajah. I jumped up and rushed into the living room. There he sat, in front of the window, looking at the sky. There were 2 differences this time. The fingers on his right hand were red and his hair was standing straight up! Que paso mijo? “No se” I looked at him. Did you do that thing again? He looked at me and shrugged his little shoulders. “No se.”
When he had calmed down, I took him and put some ice on his fingers. He walked with me into his room. Sticking out of the socket were his moms favorite tweezers, or what was left of them, all twisted and melted where the plastic had once been. Thank God the breakers had shut off the electrical current.
Again, I sat down with him. I asked him what happened. He told me he put the tweezers in the socket. I asked him if he remembered what had happened the last time he did that. He answered yes. I asked why he had done that again? He said he wanted to see if it would happen again!!! The scientific method. OMG.
When I read about Uriel Antuna’s and Alexis Vega’s escapade and the resulting uproar it caused not only internally but also within the footballer community I recalled this episode. As a parent our first impulse is to punish and put a stop to behavior which is outside the acceptable norm. My first reaction was anger mixed with fear. But as I sat there and watched the little dude I realized it wasn’t ‘chancla’ time. It was time for patience and an explanation.
After we looked to his hand and combed his hair (it was never the same it stills stands up), he accompanied me to reset the breakers. The whole while we talked about what happened and he seemed to understand how dangerous the whole situation was. He is a smart kid and I am pretty sure he never stuck anything in an electrical socket again.
I am sure the same thing goes for Antuna and Vega, especially after the show of unity and support they received from their teammates, particularly ‘Capi’ Molina and Mier. Many psycho pedagogues have dedicated a lot of time in studying how human beings learn. The advances in neuroscience currently give us insight into how the brain works and how do we can enable individuals to properly process information.
Jean Piaget, a renowned behaviorists and pioneer in education, developed a theory that allowed us to understand how the brain works when it comes to storing information. He describes how human beings gather and store information that they acquire from the environment where they live through active interaction and practice.
Lev Vygotsky, another pioneer, pointed out that intelligence is developed thanks to certain psychological tools that the child finds in his/her environment, among which language, symbols and mediation from other individuals play an important role.
Basically, the difference between Piaget's and Vygotsky's theory is that the former states that the person acquires information and learns by himself, while Vygotsky proposes that an interrelationship between people and their environment is necessary for learning to take place. I think it’s a mix of the two.
In a nutshell, we learn not to stick things into electrical sockets by doing it, then analyzing what we did alone and with others and hopefully learning from our experiences. Hopefully Uriel and Alexis have learned to stay away from light sockets.
BTW When I came back into the room after looking after my eldest I couldn’t find my other son! He wasn’t on the bed where I had left him! I found him on the floor under the bed. He must have crawled off and slid down the bed sheets. He was happily chewing on some lost socks and playing with the dust bunnies. He still hasn’t forgiven me for leaving him alone…
