Your view is in line with developmental psychologists. Children who are never given a chance to think and act independently will grow up stunted and incomplete. By overprotecting, you weaken the child.
The CPS should have a focus on parents that are unreasonable in their protection. Unfortunately, they have to be policy based. One child out of 500,000 that is snatched when alone creates much more attention than 50,000 children (out of 500,000) that never get the joy of developing into reasonable, competent and calm grown-ups...