First-person view is a reliable workaround, at least for me and my son.
would call this issue "Incorrect block placement in third person back view"
I have reproduced this on iOS, both on an iPad Air 2 and an iPhone XS, both running iOS 13.1.3 and Minecraft 1.13.0.
The behavior seems to be that the places blocks are created or destroyed are directionally correct but the distance is wrong. Eg if I click in the far right center of the screen, blocks are created or destroyed in the middle right.
This made my 7yo cry. Seems restricted to third person back (can't place items at all in third person front)
[media]
we noticed it was fixed as well.