It certainly escalated. I have a kid and my kid would be immediately be reprimanded and would start to loose privileges if she continued in this way. I would have apologized to the man and even enlisted in his help to teach my kid empathy. It is not hard to occupy your kid on a flight if you have tried to control your kid for 4 or 5 years. If your trying to do it the day you fly it's disaster.

I have seen it with a lot of my friends, "oh your child is so well behaved, I can't get my kid to do that, they just must be built differently". They aren't different you haven't been parenting your kid for 5 years and doing the hard work. 5 minutes of pain will alleviate years of anguish. Most parents won't endure those 5 minutes. They would rather appease their kids like this lady. My kid occupied themselves for 3 hours on 2 different planes and even enjoyed herself. She got to watch the clouds, color in her new book, and enjoy a movie on the TV screen.

She just makes parents look bad. The couple is not wrong but it certainly escalated. Sad to say but the flight staff should be involved, you know how it will end when she starts making excuses.