Help Get the Shame Off This Kid

Allison and I were at the park with the kids recently. As I was following Rachel around I overhead two boys shouting profanity to each other. Neither was being malicious, but of course, I did not want Rachel exposed to it. I spoke to both boys to have them stop as little kids were around. They both stopped.

Later I noticed that one of the boys was sitting at the side of the playground obviously upset. His mother asked him what's wrong which he then just walked away from the playground towards the field. She called for him to come back, but he just continued to get further away.

The boy had felt shamed. He wanted to remove himself from the situation, and his mom's calling to him made him feel more exposed.

After a long while the boy came back to the playground and went to his mom. He told his mom that he was upset because a man had accused him of saying bad words when it was his brother. His mom said it was ok, but his brother should not have been using those words. He felt better then went around playing with the other boys pretending to kill everyone on the playground.

The boy had found a way to come back towards others, save face, and not address the root issues.

If you were the mom, given time to think it through, how would you pull the darkness from your son in this situation?

Please provide your answer in the comments. There is no right answer. I am not sure what I would have done, but this boy has a shame issue and as the pretend parent in this scenerio let's get the shame off him! We will start the class off Sunday with this question.

Discussion continued on next post!