The phrase "a scolding for" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when referring to a reprimand or criticism directed at someone for their actions or behavior.
Example: "After the incident, the teacher gave a scolding for the students who were disruptive during class."
Alternatives: "a reprimand for" or "a warning for".
This book has gotten a bit of a scolding for being "too similar" to Harry Potter.
The most recent ruling could be read as a scolding: "For over thirty years, the Agency has been confronted with evidence of the human health risks associated with the widespread subtherapeutic use of antibiotics in food-producing animals, and, despite a statutory mandate to ensure the safety of animal drugs, the Agency has done shockingly little to address these risks".
It was no doubt hard for some of them to accept a scolding for treating "name calling as reasoned debate" — a phrase in his Monday address — from a man who won re-election by excoriating Mitt Romney as a job-killing plutocrat.
I was expecting a scolding for dozing off, but this meeting changed my life forever.
It was a tense time and my suggestion to call a fourth shareholder was met with a scolding for being "tenatious".
After a phone call to my OB and a scolding for drinking orange juice because it "likely just spiked my sugar and that's why you probably feel funny," I walked across through Lenox Hill Hospital to MFM (Maternal Fetal Medicine) where I got monitored all afternoon.
MAGAZINE A Scold for the Street With Alan Greenspan no longer complaining about "irrational exuberance," it has fallen to a Yale economist to make the case that the markets are crazy.
Manuel avoided a scolding from his bosses for the wisecrack, just as he has largely evaded criticism for the way this season has deteriorated.
Marie Bove, 79, caught a scolding from her son for knitting at a community meeting; people in Staten Island take their neighborhood meetings seriously.
I waited, bristling, for a scolding from my inner voice.
Irwin Silber, a founder and the longtime editor of the folk-music magazine Sing Out!, who was one of the prime movers behind the folk-music revival of the 1950s and 1960s and, on a famous occasion, treated Bob Dylan to a public scolding for abandoning his political songs, died on Wednesday in Oakland, Calif.
