Parent's Conundrum

A scenario: your 8-year old son mentions to you that his friends are playing some inappropriate games. He also mentions he did not want to join and so just came off. Now you have a strong enough intuition that this is true. Now the question is, how are you going to react?

Here is my take:

Ask your son to continue playing with his friends but avoid taking part in the dirty ones. This is assuming you are fairly confident about your son's discriminatory abilities.

All good. What about your responsibility towards the parents of the other kids? I think you should definitely mention the dirty games to their parents so that they would be able to correct the kids. Now there is the likelihood of those parents disbelieving you. There is the likelihood of them accusing your child of lying. Never mind, how does it matter? Let them react; you have done your part.

But the offshoot of the whole episode is your son possibly losing the friends. Even if the parents believe you, in all probability, they would question their kids and say enough for the kids to realize that your son spilled the beans. And this is where things break up. You do not want your son to suffer.

What is the way out now? I talked about this conundrum to a more enlightened friend. She had a very clear advice. At a neutral instance raise this with your son and talk to him about your responsibility towards the other parents. Ask him for an opinion on what you should do. Make him feel empowered. It is also a great opportunity to point out the value of righteousness. If you go ahead and talk to the other parents after getting a buy-in from your son, you are in a much better position to avoid your son's heartbreaks even if he loses his friends. Why? Your son will for sure anticipate that. Kids are smarter than we think they are.