The most common edit I use on my own poetry is to make specific the vague. Any word that’s not tethered to something concrete means nothing to a reader; it has to gain definition from your own words. So, for instance, “beautiful” is meaningless unless it’s got a concrete image related to it. Even something like “holy” or “boring” is vague. Take the great lines found in Elizabeth Garcia’s poem, “Man with Pitcher:”

“I think all days have been the same—

dry days of bread, of shuffling

to synagogue, and back to empty rooms.”

It gives the feel of boredom and loneliness through the images of “dry days of bread” and “shuffling…back to empty rooms.” She never even uses the vague words, allowing us to realize them for ourselves. Go read the whole poem. Great stuff.

But I digress, because this post is not really about being specific in your writing or even Elizabeth Garcia’s excellent poetry. I’ve been using this edit for years, and talking about being specific, and only just this past month have I understood its true power: I need to be concrete, solid, real, in the way I talk to my children.

I don’t know why it has sunk in with so much force this time around; I’ve read How to Talk so Kids will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk and they do discuss this. For some reason, Transforming the Difficult Child: the Nurtured Heart Approach (my current read for my Parenting Works Cited page) has made me stop and evaluate everything I say, in a good way.

It turns out that the words “good job” are as meaningless and vague to a child as “nice” would be in a poem. I need to say something real, describe what I see: “I see you put on your shoes without being asked.” “I hear you playing quietly with your brother,” or “I don’t hear any fighting in the back of the car.”Even just a description of what my child’s doing, without a hint of praise, is a way of being in the moment with them: “I see you’re making a lot of dots on your picture.” Just that, just those words. Concrete, specific, and what my child hears is “I see you.”

Transforming the Difficult Child points out, and rightly so, that I tend to invest a great deal of time and specificity pointing out all the ways my children mess up. I have no trouble being concrete when it comes to socks dotting the carpet, dishes left uncleared, practicing put off a little longer. It has been my default setting at times, this kind of criticism. But I’m working to change that default, to give my best, most concrete description and energy to the good things they do.

It’s easy to deny the praise behind “good job” if it doesn’t have concrete language behind it. It feels hollow and fake. But they cannot deny the truth of the words “you got ready so quickly that we’re leaving early for church because of you.” It’s more work to be constantly seeking for the speedy tooth-brushing, the put-away laundry, and yet I am starting to see the results. My kids trust the good things I say more.

I guess what’s stunning to me is the number of times I have read a vague poem and told the writer (often myself) to be more real, more specific, without realizing how much my children need the same kind of language from me. I need to invest as much of my heart in singing their praises as I do in revising a perfect line.