It Takes A Village to Raise a Child

I have no idea where the wisdom that it takes a village to raise a child originates, but I am beginning to think that some of our villages aren't holding up their end of the bargain. After the knitting fiasco of last Fall, I had pretty well made up my mind that I wouldn't do the enrichment clusters at the elementary school again. However, when Younger Son was given a project on Community Heroes as a Grade Three Social Studies project, I changed my mind. Why? He chose me as his Community Hero because of the time that I spend at the school with the enrichment clusters and other volunteering. I LOVE my kids! After that compliment, it was kind of hard to say "No" when I was asked again...
I wasn't going to make the same mistake twice and decided that maybe I'd do Sewing this time. We're making handsewn beanbag frogs and it is going much better, thank you very much! One of the kids even finished his frog today, so I'll have to have him do something different with our last session in two weeks. (Truth be told, I sewed on his frog eyes because he wanted to give the frog to his younger sister so I'll probably get him to sew the eyes onto a different frog. Sewing on buttons counts as a life skill so it is something he really should learn.)
One of the things about the sewing is that it is a smaller group, which does make it more manageable. There are supposed to be a total of 4 kids in the group, but I have never had more than 2 at a time. Of the 4, there is one girl and three boys. One of the boys had been in Younger Son's class for a couple of year, but they are no longer in the same grade.
Here is where the village comes in - I know that not everyone is going to agree with my life choices, nor my ideas about parenting and childrearing, but I just don't know what to do with this child! He is very capable of completing the project, but has clearly never had to try to do anything or find his own solutions. I could live with that, but what do you do when you have an 8 year old telling you that all he does at home is play video games because his Mom says that that is his "thing"? Or when he tells you that his favourite television shows are Family Guy and Robot Chicken and that his Mom likes to watch Family Guy with him? Or when he tells you that his parents like to swear a lot? Or when his idea of a relationship follows these steps: meet, have a baby and then fight about who has to take care of the baby? Or that video games are educational because they teach him which words not to say in public? And Mario is his favourite Super Hero...
I'm quite certain that I don't get everything right with my life or my kids, but it strikes me that this poor kid doesn't stand much of a chance. I wish I knew what I could do to make things better for him, but I just don't have a clue.