Punishing my Son for What Friends Do

Kids can be mean, the playground is a tough place for a lot of kids. I am trying to teach my kids how to pick "good friends," and sometimes that means punishing them for their bad choices. When my son was young there was one incident where his friend was throwing rocks at a house while my son stood and watched. When our neighbour informed us of this transgression I quickly grounded my son for a week, his friend was not punished. Try explaining how that is fair to a little boy.

No matter what we do though he continues to stand by and watch as friends make stupid decisions or bully other kids. He knows its wrong, he feels bad when we talk about it, but he does nothing to remove himself from the situation, he doesn`t correct his friends or stand up for others. He just stands there and does nothing. Not the action I am looking for.

What he doesn`t understand and refuses to believe is that his friends will stop what they are doing if he leaves the area, if they are the types of kids to be friends with. If not then find new friends. It`s not like his friends are bullies or criminal, they just get wound up sometimes as boys do and don`t think about what they are doing at the time.

My son has picked some really great kids to be friends with and they sometimes feed off each others energy and the next thing you know someone has done something stupid. For 11 year olds stupid can be as innocent as running over a neighbours lawn or not making a new kid feel welcome. What I want is to ensure is that if my son knows what is going on is wrong or stupid to walk away, not to be involved. However at the time he doesn`t think, he gets wound up by their energy and cuts through private property or hurts a new friend`s feelings. It happens, I just want him to realize that their are consequences when he does it.