Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child...
Proverbs 22:15 KJV

George Carlin came up with an interesting coinage: "child worship". We have evolved a culture that worships children, and refuses to acknowledge that their still-developing brains cannot always be "reasoned" with and their highly impressionable minds need guidance.

Abuse is highly reprehensible, but lumping every act of corporeal punishment under that category is the same lack of nuance that has ruined social interaction in the workplace, for instance.

In this case, is there a handbook for how to react?

(For me) It's not failing exams that is the issue here.

But where do you get off sitting on your high horse and legislating how a parent who paid $21k in fees should react to a child being absent altogether for certain papers?

For once, drop the virtue-signaling for social.