First off, I completely support you on all the points you described, and I do think the folks criticizing you were being silly. It IS annoying. I frequently had to defend my decisions where my kids were concerned, too. ("No, she doesn't need a hat!" "No, he's not got heatstroke, he's just very fair and turns pink easily." "If she gets cold, she'll put a jacket on. I have it right here." Arrgh!)

But I was also that person once. A friend of my husband lost his nine year old digging holes under a sand pile on a construction site, and there was a kid in my school who died when his snow fort collapsed on top of him.

So, when we saw our neighbour and his kids digging forts into the side of the snowbanks beside the road, we were very concerned. It wasn't like our other neighbour, who actually build up two banks in his back yard and put plywood over to hold up the roof. They were just digging straight into the bank, no supports, and exactly where the big trucks were going to go by eventually.

My husband made me go over and knock on their door. I was apologetic, and mainly just asked if they could rebuild their fort away from the road, because - even though we'd told our kids not to go into it and why - it was a really attractive temptation, right out there on the curb like that. Bad things could happen (ie, fort collapses, truck rolls over kid inside fort, etc...).

Next thing I see is a seriously grumpy dad out there smashing the fort in, with sad kids standing by. They did not rebuild. I felt bad. And kind of guilty. But my husband says I was the only person who could have talked to them. If he'd done it, he thinks it would have turned into an argument.

Probably nothing bad would have happened.