I'm not making a "think of the children" argument here, but rather pointing out the argument that you didn't really address when you changed the "group of children" to "pedestrians that violated traffic rules". If you actually saw a child appear in the street in front of your car, I don't think the violation of traffic laws would be part of your calculations in the moment.
Yes, the scenario given is absurdly contrived, but the issue is real. In any collision avoidance scenario, once things have already gone wrong, you have to make tradeoffs, sometimes involving potential dangers to both people inside and outside of the vehicle.
If children run into the highway, blaming the parents doesn't answer the question of what the car should do. If nobody else is on the road, you can swerve. What if there is a vehicle in the lane next to you, will you swerve towards it and risk a minor accident to avoid one that is more likely to be fatal? How much risk would be acceptable to avoid certainly killing a pedestrian? In highway driving sometimes bad things suddenly happen directly in front of you and the only choice is between different accidents. Humans make these decisions and autonomous vehicles are going to have to make them too.