Agreed. Great parental pep talk from KJP, great thoughts and advice from LAF and others.
I'll just add one additional point for consideration. Although the ant is not a mammal, the element of killing it to get a reaction brings to mind that childhood cruelty to animals may be an early warning for later trouble. This
article mentions possible motivations including "a vehicle for emotional abuse" (bullying/intimidation), and a desire to "alleviate boredom or achieve a sense of control."
Possibly these manipulative aspects of the perpetrator's behavior, underscored with lying to play the victim, made the situation more chilling. While these things may go unobserved by many or go over other heads without being thought about or processed, possibly an awareness of the power gained dishonestly by this kid through manipulation caused your son to feel disempowered, provoking the tears?
Observations which trigger thoughts/feelings beyond one's vocabulary to express them, may be overwhelming and lead to frustration/tears. Gaining the ability to express the ideas/feelings may help avoid tears in similar future situations. If this may apply with your son, you may wish to have conversations about things such as level of awareness, one's own thinking, possible motives of others in an interaction, differing values/ethics, and who is benefitting at different levels in a situation. To all outward appearances it looks like the other kid "won", but possibly took a hit interiorly in his conscience or character development or karma.
