Thanks; I agree totally with that. The important thing is that this can be really misleading: > And holding back criticisms now really does a disservice later

Thanks; I agree totally with that. The important thing is that this can be really misleading: > And holding back criticisms now really does a disservice later in life. Holding back criticism isn't the problem; their limited understanding of the world is. Once you name the problem, the best solutions look quite different; there's no need to tell them their work is low-to-mediocre; they'll be saying it themselves (but with a drive to improve). There are also still people who will be nasty to kids with the idea of "toughening them up"; this is crap as well (kids can better deal with shitty behavior if they have a solid idea of what is non shitty behavior, and if they haven't been traumatized into having intense emotional responses in conflict), but I don't have time to get into that in depth here....