One of your stated reasons for leaving the US when you have kids is that the US is hostile to adults assaulting children? Because that's the circumstance you described with your father and the kid from school.
`tptacek, I'm not sure you'll ever see this, but I'll reply to your point anyways:
As `shintakezou pointed out, this is very much a cultural matter here. France (where my parents and I are from) tends to subscribe more to the "it takes a village to raise a child" mentality. Correcting the behavior of someone else's child at the park, supermarket, in the bus, etc. if they are out of the parent's sight is perfectly acceptable in French culture, and as a kid it happened to me many times, without traumatizing me (even when it was a scary old man yelling at me).
It is not perceived as assault, and it is certainly not "terrifying them verbally" (I find that phrasing a little bit excessive though, and am surprised that you extracted that from my "a few stern words").
In retrospect, the one thing my father did wrong was not considering that he was living in a different culture, and that something that seemed normal to him might be scandalous in the US. But that only makes my wish to leave the US when I have children even more valid in my eyes: I'd hate to find myself in those sort of cultural misunderstandings that can very easily escalate juridically.
I do find the US's approach to parenting very poor: France's approach to parenting is that kids are human beings in construction, and that they do not inherently know what is right or wrong, good or bad - and it is up to adults (parents or not) to let them know (that doesn't mean that their feelings or interests are invalid because they are "incomplete": it just means that they are lacking the knowledge of social mores, conventions, mental tools, etc. required to be productive citizens). The US's approach to parenting falls more in line with the belief that children are just "little adults" and that one should respect their wishes and desires no matter what, which I find preposterous.
I chose my words carefully. When an adult confronts a child and terrifies them verbally, that is assault. That's not my opinion; that's the law. Because it is so easy for an adult to create a credible fear of violence in a child, it is very poor judgement for adults to directly confront children.
And the fact you see assault, and a law teaches you that it is so, instead of just scolding, is a cultural bias (sort of) and a point in favor of not living in US - or similar countries - for anyone born and grown up where these deceptive concepts are absent and hopefully not carved in a law.
Once common sense would have been enough: do you scolded my child? Why? What's happened? ... Ha, ok, my son did something wrong... and so on...
Usually it's not that hard.
Instead, a society rambling towards paranoia and driven by fear (especially this), makes a citizen feel the urge to "look at" a greater power, the Great Protector, to "protect" him/her even from an unexistant menace - or to seek revenge.
In the story we are commenting, the first thing I have noticed and blamed was the following: the mother surrenders to the request of the son who wants to go with her to the store. There, she makes the first mistake: the son had to stay at home with the grandma.
